Fosterling
by kerricarri
Summary: Nara Shikaku is determined to end this little game of theirs by bringing in the monster who has left the police a mute survivor, a boy who is hellbent on meeting his savior, the killer who so wickedly inspires him, Sasori. 'I worship you.' SasoDei.
1. Daddy, Mommy, Love me?

The first two chapter serves as prologue, which is entirely in Deidara's POV. Afterwards, a police arc is introduced to guide and push the story forwards, bringing in Naruto's minor characters like Nara Shikaku (Shikamaru's father) and Yakushi Kabuto to advance the plot.

This whole fic is convoluted, complicated, and has many open ended questions. But, most of all, it's a mystery, intended to drive readers up the wall. Shikaku, a major character and a frequent POV, among with other characters, throw in their impressions, their thoughts, and their actions into the fic, which all serves to give the reader the information to piece together the two central, core characters for themselves: Deidara and Sasori.

This is an AU, and I don't adhere to canon ages and personalities all the time. Every single character, though, has a place in the fic. There won't be any slash elements until much later, and only then it's to supplement the plot, not overtake it. The fic is M-rated for a reason, too.

* * *

The little boy kneels stricken on the ground, eyes courting the horror that was his mother's body.

"...Mama?"

Desecration. A soulless smile is stretched out wide across that pale, beautiful face. His mother's lidless eyes cannot close in aching, wanton rest. Lank hair, thick with death, is streaked in red.

His mother is collapsed on her side, the cavity of her chest exposing a still heart, all seeping fluid and silent fluttering beats, and the belly that bore him delicately cut open, pinned back; her innards scream with maggots and flies. She is a specimen, a soft and fleshy cadaver, and the little boy does not quite understand. He crawls forward.

Once creamy skin is marred with flippant scars, slashed wildly all over her body. But it is her legs that catches the little boy's attention; they are hacked into pieces. With ligaments and skin still attaching the many parts together in a hazardous broken pattern of muscles and clinging flesh, his mother's legs are rich with decay and blood.

Her clothes are cut, shredded. The only untouched portion of his mother's pearl and periwinkle dress remains around her womb, and the clothes swathe her hips in a mockery of purity as the cloth around there is absent of blood. The little boy does not want to see what is under there.

It hits him. The smell. The little boy kneels stricken on the ground, eye courting the horror that was his mother's body.

The floor is stark with a substance he does not understand.

The little boy's retching adds to the room's oder. The walls parody a painting with its medley of smeared blood and gore, and the chyme and fluids from his upturned stomach only adds to it. He wants to cry—he cannot.

His knees give way and he slips forward into his own filth. He falls, just as his mother had, and he crawls and claws and pushes himself away from her body with a blank-faced terror that commands him to flee, to flee! The urgency in the action seizes his throat until he cannot breathe.

He can't see. He can't hear. His pants are dry, sobbing, heaving ones, and he is struggling not to scream.

Delirium sets in, a blanket of despair that settles over his thin shoulders and makes his view of the world narrow and warp until he can only see his mother's face. As her beautiful skin twists into gray, sunken tones, as her vivacious eyes morphs into two dull, gleaming balls—the image of his mother from before and the stranger he sees now collides and twists painfully. They become one. He can no longer remember his mother's face.

He doesn't want to.

His smile, stricken and wide, stretches until he is grinning. In grief, in disbelief, he holds that frozen expression, seeing nothing. His mother is gone. The room is gone—he sees nothing.

The little boy stares blindly ahead, not knowing how to deal with this feeling that wells up inside of him. Not knowing how to escape. He is in denial.

His throat collapses onto itself. His mouth forms soundless words.

The world has disappeared. He is falling.

He is gone.

--

Deidara is five years old when he realizes what his father does for a living.

The man is a painter. He paints beautiful things. With each work done, each canvas is carefully framed and fixed upon the studio wall. The room looks wildly unique from the rest of the pristine house—it is his father's sanctuary and not even Deidara is allowed inside.

It bursts with a warmth and a life that Deidara desperately wants to grasp. His hands grope high for this impossible dream, but he falls short. He cannot reach.

Deidara is six when he sneaks inside.

Fire. The room screams of fire on its glorious high walls. The pictures, always painted with hues of brilliant reds, speaks of a stranger Deidara does not know but does not care to know. He is distracted by the smell. Acrylic and acid and sharp sensations that attack his unprepared nose; the studio reeks of supplies.

But like all children, Deidara is quickly distracted by something else. There are muffled yells deeper into the enormous enclave that is his father's studio. It pricks at his curiosity. He slides up to a door off to the side that he did not see before.

He rests his ear on its side. The door is thick, but now he hears a terrible screaming that makes him afraid. It is his father being tortured in that room.

Another man speaks, and Deidara realizes there are two voices inside.

The little boy notices there is a slither of light gleaming along the door's edge. A crack. He eases it open until he can peek through.

His one visible eye grows wide.

A tangle of limbs. Curved, white flesh. A stranger on top of his father. Screams, pants, drool. Dripping and hot, shuddering bodies are bathed in thick, crawling milk. It slicks down his father's side, his leg.

Mesmerized. But Deidara also feels uncomfortable. With clenching fists, he leans in closer, but the wooden floor creaks! He stills, breath caught; the men inside do not hear.

The little boy relaxes until the stranger gives pause and swerves his head around to look over his shoulder. The little boy freezes. The stranger smiles strangely before giving one last thrust into his father's hips. The man moans into the sheets, shuddering and twisting all over until he lays back, exhausted. His lids are closed. The stranger is pleased.

Deidara is horrified. He wonders if his father is dead.

He looks up and meets the stranger's eyes.

The stranger has never looked away from the little boy's face, not once since Deidara has found them. His neck is turned and held taunt as he continues to stare at the little boy from over his shoulder. The stranger has never stopped smiling.

Deidara blinks. He wants to move away, but his legs refuse to cooperate. They tremble and shiver underneath his clothing, and he feels weak. He collapses to the floor. Deidara is in a heap, but still the stranger does not stop. Staring and staring, the stranger is the one staining the studio walls. He is the one his father keeps painting over and over.

Brilliant hues of reds, the man pulls away from his father. Naked and stark white, the man stalks towards the door. Towards him.

Deidara crawls away on hands and feet that cannot make him stand. He slips and slides and frantically scrambles as the door swings open. The man doesn't turn as he closes the door behind him shut; his eyes are all on the little boy's form.

Something deep and innate is screaming for him to get away, but Deidara cannot move.

The man crouches and studies the little boy. Deidara is tense and is shaking all over, but still the man does nothing.

He leans out a hand and Deidara cowers. The man rests slick, wet digits against Deidara's face. They slide down his cheek and down, down his neck until they rest on his shoulder. They push, and Deidara falls back. He stares up at the man, terrified.

The man crawls over him and brings the boy to his chest. He strokes the blond's hair and whispers mindless things against his throat.

Before Deidara can even think of screaming, the man pulls away and rests a hand on his eye. The fingers suddenly claw into the lid, socket, and Deidara can do nothing but scream. His body flails wildly. He punches and screams and kicks. The man is unmoved, even as he digs fingertips in deep and destroys the little boy's left eye.

The pain is all consuming and overwhelming. Deidara faints, the man continues his work. The man smiles.

The wide expanse of his chest is splattered with his victim's blood, but there is a slow, methodical ease to his movements. The man knows what he is doing. He moves around the house to get what he needs. He comes back and the little boy is near dead. He sits down and brings his lips to the boy's brows. The man kisses his face, fluttering kisses that eventually stop at the convulsing and bleeding socket. He pulls out his tools.

He gets to work.

The little boy is naked when the murder is found. Unconscious and profusely injured, Deidara is alive but the police finds that his father is not.

It is to their shock when they examine Deidara's wound.

The left eye is heavily mutilated. The skin around it is slashed with a careless grace and the jagged cuts have been cauterized by something hot. The room reeks of burnt flesh. As if to cover up the horrific sight of the mangled eye, the corners of the left lid is sewn shut to the skin of the boy's cheek. A glazed, dull pupil can barely be seen peeking through the opened slit.

No other part of the little boy had been touched, but the brutality done to his single eye is telling. The police latches onto the studio with grim precision. The corpse in the next room over is recovered, and the little boy is carted to the hospital. The sewn lid is unraveled, but the cauterized wound is infested with gleeful bacteria.

There is no doubt in anyone's mind that the boy will never see through that eye again. It is a permanent wound. It is the least of their worries.

The killer had struck again. The paintings that glorify the monster's face are left untouched by the man himself. Eyes captured with a fervent gleam and hair that speaks of fire and lust, the artist's obsession is seen clearly through his works. Perhaps the killer acts a narcissist when he's left the pictures in peace. Perhaps he doesn't cared about covering his tracks.

The latter is most certainly true. The tools used to carry out the little boy's torture and the father's death are strewn throughout the room. The sight of them mock them, the police, as they've lost yet another household to a maniacal beast.

The monster targets artists. That is all the police can ascertain of the man's motives.

The methods are always a little different, and the victimized artisans always vary in fame and skill and mediums, but each and every scene screams of the same brutality and grace that defines the killer's M.O.. And the damages done are always permanent. The monster takes delight in destroying the psyche, but he seems to take even greater joy in inflicting permanent wounds.

It is one of the innately disturbing things about the man—that his murders carry a sort of sickening grace seen in no other homicides. He has never committed atrocities outside of the country, and he has never moved away from the district. He is content to be patient with his kills, investing years worth of work into preparing each death. As if that is his perfectionist art.

The killer must have been well over forty years old for all the time the police has been chasing him. And yet the paintings of his face still screams of a man in his youthful twenties.

The man is a legend in these parts, but the legend himself has acted out of character.

In all the time he has played with the police, he has never left them a survivor before.

--

The little boy is pitied and alternatively inspires horror and rage in his onlookers. Horror, as everyone down at the station knows his past, and rage because he represents all the injustice in the world, the failure of authorities to catch the man who can do these terrible things.

Society shies away from him, looks away from the little boy as if he were a spawn of the devil itself. People do not like what they do not understand. They fear the unknown; Deidara is the unknown.

Unwelcomed, feared, and lonely, Deidara secludes himself in blissful ignorance and pretends he does not see the world and the world does not see him. He is afraid, and the police is at a loss as to how to interrogate a boy who cannot even recall the monster's face. His mind had shut off the memories the police so needed, but the horrific experience had not left him unscathed.

When an officer mistakingly shows the little boy one of his father's paintings, Deidara screams.

The family's wealthy state and rich status means nothing in the scarring aftermath of the artist's publicized murder. The mother, a society woman, falls apart.

She is overcome and takes the little boy away. Distraught and horrified by her husband's illicit life and scandalous death, she is quick to leave their spacious home.

Deidara does not understand. But his mother, he understands, is all he has left. He does not know what has happened to his father. At age six, he only knows that his left eye constantly throbs and that no one will tell him why he feels such pain. Eventually his hair will grow to cover his deepest shame.

Days turn into weeks and weeks turn into months. Deidara is seven-years-old when his mother is killed. No one questions who is the killer; the scene reeks of familiarity.

Once again Deidara is kept alive.

He keeps his memories this time, but he has lost his words and refuses to speak.

He doesn't even know if he can.

--

"It's time to go! Hey," the blond swings around from beyond the doorway, "are you listening?"

The other blond whose back is to her shrugs. His shoulders are hunched over something she cannot see but knows very well what it is.

She frowns briefly before stepping over. "Whatcha got there, kid?"

He holds up a small bird. Eyes widening, she marvels at its realism before grinning. She musses his hair a bit, much to his consternation, but she doesn't care.

Setting his sculpture down, he bats her hands away. Her grin is infectious, though, and soon she is pleased to see its effects on his face.

Reluctant to take it away, she sighs. "Okay, so you know I'm supposed to register you today at your new school, right? Why don't we go and get it over with?"

To her surprise, he continues to look pleased. Frowning openly now, she says slowly, "You don't mind...?"

Turning to pick up a marker and pad, he scribbles something on it before presenting the words to her with a flourish.

The large, sloppy kanji are as confident as ever. The girl reads it quickly, the wariness in her furrowed brows easing more and more as she finishes.

Still, something doesn't sit right with her. Sweeping back the heavy tresses covering her right eye, she looks at him firmly. "This is really what you want? You wrote it, so I don't want you taking back your words when we get there. No protesting, okay? Junior high isn't so bad."

He nods placidly, still smiling.

Uncertain and taken aback by his compliance, she kneels to meet him at eye level. "Deidara," she says, taking his hand in hers, "I know it's going to be big and scary, and I know how important your art is to you. You don't have to hide your fear. We're family, aren't we? You don't have to keep all your feelings inside. Trust me. Please?"

Again he nods, offering her nothing more in the way of words or gestures. Not even a frown appears at her persistence. Usually he is annoyed when his foster parents pry too far, and his adopted sister is no exception. She backs off.

"Well," she says, standing to straighten and adjust her clothes as a distraction, and her expression is strained, "nothing like the present, huh? Why don't you change and meet me in the foyer?" She leaves his room without waiting for a reply.

His smile drops the moment she is gone. A scowl takes up its place. He turns his attention back towards his still wet bird. It is moist with the consistency of clay, and his shirt is dirty and splattered with mud. It must be why his sister asked him to change, but Deidara prefers it this way. It is proof of his joy, his most relieving activity. He likes his clothes filthy and matted because it is honest.

His fake relatives of four years are hypocrites. This family is a farce.

They try so hard to see to his needs and desires, to comfort the supposedly sullen, grieving, and depressed boy with all the love they could force onto him, but he is sick of it. He just wants them to leave him alone. He sincerely wishes he can tell them off.

They don't like seeing him play with clay. It is an attitude that he feels deeply resentful of. It's not as if he's obsessed about his art, either, but they act as if he were an unstable boy with unhealthy habits. Since when has making sculptures of pretty birds and insects been dangerous?

The incident with the sparrow of ripped wings doesn't count.

Neither does the numerable occasions he'd been caught eating bugs count either.

The sparrow is an experiment of sorts. Curious, the little boy of ten plays with the wounded bird until the play becomes a little too rough. But the bird is still alive by the end of it, and Deidara is able to pretend that the blood has just been paint all along. There is no need for the extreme reaction he gets from his mother. Her panic is unfounded, and her alarm, foolish. A hysterical wife greets her husband that day at the door.

He is eleven now, but she never let him forget it. It is in her eyes.

The bugs are another matter. Something about their freakish eyes and grossly organic movements fascinates him. He feels as if he were among his own kind. When he catches a dragonfly for the first time, Deidara shows it his ruined left eye; the meeting is that special.

The same dragonfly is smiled at as Deidara pulls off its wings.

But he isn't hurting it! He just wants to see more of its frantic fluttering...the way sunlight catches and glints off transparent wings. He leaves one of them still attached to the body, but it is to the little boy's disappointment when it falls dead.

Deidara searches the grass for its carcass when he finally sees them, the gooey stains. All over his fingers. To the boy's overactive imagination, his hands are drenched in bug guts. He licks.

It tastes funny. At least now he knows why he killed it. Are all insects this fragile or is it just dragonflies? Deidara wants to find out.

The insect is so pretty. It is only right to make more friends.

Deidara had been a lonely boy before he finds these friends. Friends don't eat each other, of course, but sometimes he does. It's fun.

Now, though, his room is filled with them! Sometimes, he has to be really sneaky not to let his parents catch onto him. After they take away his pet sparrow, he thought he'd never become happy again. He's happy now but doesn't like how he hardly has time for them all.

He's very fond of boxes.

His sister has recently learned of his friends. She overreacted, too, just like his mother had when she found out about the bird, but he knows she won't tell on him; she likes him too much.

She thinks he's fragile. He plays up that image for all it's worth. She's easy to manipulate, that sister of his. She didn't even react when she'd seen his newest sculpture, so Deidara knows that he is safe for the time being. Maybe his parents are ashamed.

He doesn't care. They're sending him to some stupid public school, so it's their fault anyway. He wishes he doesn't have to transfer; he is perfectly fine with his old private school, a wealthy elevator school that priories ability over name.

His _real_ parents had liked that, so Deidara was enrolled. Now they're dead.

His foster family is poor.

"No," the woman claiming to be his mother says. "We're only conscious of our expenses, Deidara. You were held back for several terms because of...well, your tuition's extended even further. We can't support it anymore. We have to think about your sister."

Ah. His sister. Everything comes down to his sister, doesn't it? Because of his sister, Deidara is forced to carry around a blank pad of paper for the _convenience_ of the people around him. What about his convenience? Is looking like a stupid mute supposed to be convenient for him? If only he can speak!

Deidara rebels by writing sloppy. He is delighted when his mother strains her eyes trying to read. His sister, disappointingly, has already adjusted. His father is a mystery.

Deidara does not remember his own father, but this strange man does not try and replace him. For that alone, the boy is grateful.

But that does not mean he is not wary. Who is this man? What does he want with him? Why has he adopted Deidara?

Deidara does not call him 'father.' He calls him by name.

The child at the heart of such infamy hasn't been adopted by chary families before Inoichi comes to the orphanage. When the blond man first arrives, Deidara ignores him just as he ignores everyone else.

But then the man keeps coming back. Again. And again. And again. Always inquiring after Deidara, always nosy, until finally the littles boy takes notice, comes up to the irritating man, and when Inoichi obligingly kneels down at Deidara's feet, the boy spits in his face.

The man shocks everybody when he only laughs. Days pass, and Inoichi doesn't stop coming. Eventually, the man's persistence in seeing Deidara as a potential adoptee wears the boy down until papers are drawn up and a rabid, scandal-hungry media is eager to eat them alive. By the time they walk out of those orphanage front doors, cameramen and reporters alike are frothing at the mouths.

Inoichi stoically bears it all, but makes no effort in giving Deidara a smile. The confused boy only scowls and turns away, but there is no doubt in anyone's mind that he is clutching at his new father's hand. Deidara doesn't do so again; the next day, a mortified Deidara sees an inflated picture of himself clinging to the older man on the front page of a supermarket tabloid.

Deidara can dimly recall the man's face from before his mother's murder but nothing more. He doesn't bother remembering anything from before his father's death. He doesn't recollect anything of the day his father dies—every untactful person has hinted it as a brutal kill, but Deidara sincerely doesn't remember.

But sometimes he dreams...

He's told that theirs was a happy family. If so then it hurts to try and envision what life could have been like were his family whole. So he doesn't. It is a beautiful image, though.

Turning a cold eye on the bird figurine in between his hands, Deidara suddenly smashes it against the wall. Gray matters smears against his hand, the wall, as clay bits falls to the floor. Blank-faced, he picks up the pieces only to toss them in the trash. The destruction is complete. No recycling is to be had.

The clay bird his sister was so impressed with is no more. Art is beautiful that way—fleeting, transient, passing. And brief. Temporary. It never lasts.

It is beautiful.

An unhinged smile alights his face.

Deidara already pulls out new clay, ready to provide his hands the substance they so need. He will make another bird, he decides. A bigger one, perhaps the size of a robin. Or a sparrow. Yes, he decides. A sparrow sounds lovely.

His smile turns delirious with his pleasure. Moist, slick clay is mashed in between his fingers as they shape a shape only he can see. It is glorious, ethereal. Forever—until its death! Deaths are continual yet brief, and the contradiction excites him. Just as they will continue on and on so, too, will Deidara carry out these glorious actions until his own death. His last breath is dedicated to this delicious slavery!

It is an ode, his life's work. He will never stop.

A feather appears! Eager to see more, his wet digits works furiously to bring about its master's baby, his dear. His love.

A vague body is formed. Feet are tucked neatly against its underbelly. Wings are outlined, feathers come to being. The head is formed, a beak!

Deidara imagines, as he pokes in two depressions for the eyes, that he will enjoy ripping this little bird to shreds. He will drench himself in mud and pretend it to be blood. He will whine as that sparrow of old whined, cry as that sparrow of old cried, and laugh as he presents his sacrifice to his father and mother. His father would congratulate him, paint him a new picture—_flames, flames, flameflameflflame—_and his lovely mother, with her mutilated, hidden womb, would outstretch her hands wide and take her baby boy into her arms.

He is loved.

Deidara falls back, exhausted. He pants as the fledgling bird sings. His smile is crazed as he basks in its glory, as it flaps its wings! The ceiling warps above, calling his attention to that wonderful landscape of sky. The room entraps him, his cage, his prison—but no longer! He frenetically breaks his chains—and escapes. Free! He flies, free, out of his gilded caged coffin...

He waits. Death snaps at his flying heels! But he waits.

For _**Him**_.

"Danna," the boy sobs, writhing at the wrath's feet. "_Danna_..."

* * *

Gets kinda vague towards the end, but I like it. Did Deidara really speak? Who knows. At least it's not as ambiguous as my other SasoDei...although there's only a smidge of that here.

Thanks for reading. The prologue ends next chapter, and it only gets more crazy from here on.


	2. Hidan, I Play?

I had entirely too much fun with this chapter.

* * *

It is the ribs that are the hardest to deal with. The smell is rank. But that is not why Deidara struggles.

The sight of his prey gleams in his eyes. With glinting tools, he slashes at the skin, the muscles, and pries open the chest. But he doesn't stop there. The ribs impede him initially, but once they are out of the way he is free to slice one deep stroke down the belly. Hair and skin give way like butter to his touch. There is an inane urge to massage the dead thing.

He tosses the bladed weapon away. It clatters in the sink. Taking a scalpel, he digs it deeply in, taking care to leave slits at the sides in order to create flaps. At first he is concerned as the tool does not wrench clearly. Something, perhaps an intestine, has tangled with the bladed edge and latches onto it; the tool is snagged. After wiggling and twisting the handle a bit, the scalpel slides out with ease. He relishes in the feel of slick metal pulling free.

The abdomen is finished. He unfolds the flaps of skin, pinning them back. Pausing at the sight of his art, he shakes off the strange sense of déjà vu and continues on.

The moment the innards are stark open for his perusal, he shoves his hands deep into the cavity of the chest. The chest is a gaping maw that he delights playing in. The sensations of squealing, squishing entrails please him. He can feel them on his hands, the delicious textures. Fingers twisting all over, he finally feels what he is looking for. He touches its many chambers. He strokes the underbelly of the heart. It jiggles back!

His play is a little too rough; liquids fly towards his face. Deidara jerks his head to the side, letting his shield of hair take the blow. Fluids drip down. His bangs are drenched. His shirt is marred also.

He smiles wide.

At this moment the fetal pig is his greatest delight.

Deidara loves biology.

"Gr...g-gr-_gross_! _Deidara_!"

He turns to his lab partner, gray, runny matter still all over him. Deidara poises his single visible eye to look confused, a brow furrowed in inquiry. In truth, he wants to mock and laugh at her sensibilities.

His lab partner obliges him. "That's sick! _Gross_! I can't believe you're actually enjoying this! Are you sick or something?" She is still staring at his hair, at his ruined clothes. Her hands clutch at her own clothing as if wary of any more flying substances.

She is quite pretty, a detached part of him notes. But not beautiful.

She glances furtively around. Out of the corner of her lipsticked mouth, she hisses, "Put your goggles back on! God, I don't want the teacher to come and see this mess! You...you weren't even going to use gloves for fuck's sake!"

His smile turns serene. He wants her to shut up now.

The gloves in question are silkily rough on his skin and smells of rubber. When their group had first acquired the pig, he wanted to dissect without protective gloves.

Protective. Honestly. Formaldehyde can't hurt him, much less a dead mammal.

Nothing of that nature can hurt him.

"...damn Sensei and his random pairs! I swear if this..."

Ignoring her fervent whispers, he pulls at the material covering his hands until each digit is unsheathed.

"...can't believe I have to be stuck with you all month!"

He takes off one glove, but it clings back with a snap. He tries again. It is incredibly wet and slippery, slick.

"Are you even listening to me?"

He calmly takes off the other glove, and then shoves it into her face. Her makeup smears.

And her shriek is beautiful. It is a sweet relief when it is over.

Just another day.

--

The dull monotony of daily life is peppered by the black stains. Deidara likes to add to those stains.

It is the only way he can amuse himself.

"...Deidara," his mother sighs. She seems to do a lot of that nowadays. "Where are you going? Why are you doing this?"

The latter is not a question. The former is only a worn obligation. His mother loves him, but she is often more exasperated with him than not.

He cocks a smile at her and only that, but it comes out as a smirk. At age seventeen, Deidara no longer indulges in his fake pitiful boy persona and allows his mother a glimpse to see. See? See what? It is something currently up to debate with his friends. They delight in his enigmatic motives, but Deidara is wholly uncooperative and detached; let them try and guess at his mind. Let them try and see.

"Are you going to see those friends again?"

A twist of the lips, and Deidara momentarily frowns; he thought the first was not a question. He sends her an irritated glance and sweeps past her. His mother stands at the doorway, watching him slink off down the street, but he cannot see her face and thus does not know her expression.

It is forlorn. He doesn't know that, but he doesn't care to know; his mother may as well as be a stranger to him. In recent years, it was only too easy to become wrapped up in confrontations with her. It's amazing how well a mute boy can argue.

He pauses at the end of the block. The casual nature of his stance, the hands that are shoved into his pockets, and the loose clothing slung low on his hips and shoulders all make a pretty picture. It is dark. He is alone. The Yamanakas live deep in the city, and tackling the paths towards its inner city life with flippant disregard is only a fool's attitude.

He does not believe his life is in any immediate danger. He also doesn't put much worth into his mother's neurotic ramblings about gang violence and all that rot.

With a shrug, he continues on. His steps are unhurried and taunting, careless. His obvious ease with his surroundings beg questioning from anyone. Or unwanted attention.

Deidara's smile is disarming, but only because he makes it out to be. Only because he knows that in his left pocket he is clutching the switchblade he'd acquired from an acquaintance, and in his right pocket hides a special compartment he is not at all adversed to opening. He is confident that using both can protect him.

Empty, lull streets eventually change.

Deidara strays farther from home.

Soon enough, he enjoys the hubbub, the lively nightlife that splatters the inner, private parts of the city with bursts of colors and lights. Bars here, clubs there, drawing in drunkards and lovers and salarymen alike. Restaurants, some western, some cheap, some expensive, and _i__zakaya—_many of them—strewn all around the place, crimson lanterns cheerfully glowing up front.

Deidara breathes, and it is as if it is the first breath he takes in years.

Away from his freakishly normal family. Away from their dousing torrents of pity—because they cannot truly sympathize with him, not really. Away. He is so glad to be free.

Deidara is the awkward, mismatched piece among the puzzle that is already whole. The lost paper-and-cardboard bit that is forgotten underneath the bed, found only when the matching set is gone.

He isn't a Yamanaka, and he never will be.

His mother's attempts to care for him only comes off as overbearingly awkward. He has wearily accepted his sister's intrusive presence long ago; for reasons he cannot fathom, she hangs onto him like a leech. But out of all their picket white fence, quaint family of four Inoichi has to be the worst.

It isn't one specific thing the man does. Rather, it is an accumulation of memories and a near lifetime of observations that convinces Deidara that he does not like the man.

Yes, he remembers the man from his childhood, but does Inoichi have to keep reminding him of the fact? Is there not such a thing as tact or social caution?

Inoichi was once friends with his father—his _real_ father, the elusive artist that died the night Deidara's eye was scarred.

Perhaps the hatred of the near constant pain in his left eye has transferred as hatred to poison the memory of his father. He can hardly remember him. He doesn't even remember what his father liked to paint or whether the man loved him or not. He is told his biological father was a magnificent man with an outstanding capability for art.

Deidara does not care, not even when his tactless and flatter of an art teacher tells him that he is growing to become his father more and more every day.

He hates her, by the way.

In any case, Inoichi's easy familiarity with his old friend's son is completely unacceptable. _No one_ talks to Deidara about his past. It is a social taboo in of itself, but that isn't what keeps annoying pests away: he himself is a living, breathing barrier. He doesn't need his past to keep people away. He does it fine all on his own.

Now if only Inoichi can get the belated memo and _stay away_. Deidara hates trying to constantly guess whether or not Inoichi's motives are truly sincere. If he has to label the man as anything, Deidara would call him guilt-ridden. Why else would a nice, normal, middle-aged man willingly and eagerly take in an dead friend's traumatized son? It doesn't make sense, and Deidara would like to believe that the man isn't a pervert.

Feeling guilty about another person's death is stupid unless you were the killer. And even then why kill only to feel guilt afterwards? Stupid.

Inoichi tells him that his father loved him, that the two of have, father and son, had shared many precious memories together. If so, why doesn't Deidara remember? _Why can't he remember_?

The frustration of dealing with this damnable amnesia, coupled with the humiliation and pain of bearing a hideous eye, twists whatever filial piety Deidara has towards the memory of his real father into something not quite nice.

Inoichi is his father now. A highly annoying one, but he is the only father Deidara has. Fathers have convienent uses, especially in a society that does not believe Deidara to be_ mature_. He supposes he owes the man some semblance of loyalty for that, maybe even because he took the boy away from the orphanage hell.

In the immediate aftermath of his most honorable mother's death, Deidara was made as a ward of the state. And hated every moment of it.

In the orphanage, every single brat was afraid of him. They cursed at him, ran away from him, or mocked him for his eye and scandalous past. Deidara felt that his soul was bared, ripe and vulnerable, for the picking, hacking, wrenching, and gutting of the other children.

His hair had not yet grown to hide that ugly, mutilated eye, and Deidara was left ashamed and angry at something that had been far beyond his control. His impotent fury was all he had to arm himself with, and in those first few months at the orphanage he clothed himself within a tight barricade. If someone came too close, he struck out at them. Sometimes physically, sometimes not.

Regardless, he was quickly placed into therapy. And it infuriated him. Having strangers poke and pry at his head was not acceptable at all. He knew that had he acted the calm, placid child they would have never given him to a psychiatrist to be played with. But, no, the moment he acted on his emotions and grief and anger they commit him? They believed him to be so deeply traumatized to the point of being in danger of becoming a dysfunctional social misfit? Or an immediate danger to the brats around him?

If he had been that calm, placid child, everybody would have forgotten all about him, and he would've been left alone. He'd have withered up and died in that very same orphanage. No one would've given a damn. He could've died, and no one would care.

He wondered if anyone noticed how terrible his thoughts were, how hateful, but no one was a mind reader. No one was able to read his thoughts.

He frustrated the social workers with his evasions, and his elusive answers did nothing but lead them around and around in circles. Whenever he was given a pad of paper to write on, he delighted in tearing them to shreds. Everyone soon learned to ask him simple questions he could shake or nod to, and those were absolute hindrances to his therapy sessions.

What else did they expect from a seven-year-old still recovering from his mother's death?

And then Yamanaka Inoichi came.

Deidara is fully convinced he is nothing but an awkward, social obligation to the man.

Underneath all that nice guy, gentle exterior, Inoichi is nothing more than a man carrying out a dead friend's wishes. His mother, he knows, has been initially against his adoption into the family. Deidara doesn't blame her; he is all too aware that he has a lot of baggage.

His sister is a bit stranger. She seems to love him but is still wary. She appears to be unobservant, but she can sometimes be shrewd. She acts like an air headed idiot but still has the tact to know when to leave him alone. Having to deal with all these contradictions is tiresome, and Deidara wearies of not knowing where she truly stands.

I guess I'm tired, he thinks. Of life? Of this? What is this?

He looks at his surroundings, detached, and no longer feels anything about it, about being free. What difference does it make? Here or there, home or school, everything is still the same. Boring, gray, dull. The monotone is something he can never escape, so why bother to try?

His clothes are a bit flashier than usual, he notes. Usually he is content to simply wear whatever fits best, but his top is purposefully loose to give a tantalizing view of his throat. His bare shoulders, pale and free of dirt for once, are not offset by numerous accessories and necklaces and nicknacks for once. His neck is entirely free of distractions. His hair is down, an unusual thing, and the loose tresses irritate him as he bats them away from his face.

Over all he makes a very girly picture, but his friend has insisted.

Deidara suspects he knows why.

The first head he really notices is one shock full of white hair. Silver, was the belated thought. Said head looked around until gleaming eyes settle on Deidara; they widen. "Well, fuck it," Hidan says, eying him with a careless grace. "You're even more like a girl. Didn't think you would. Seriously."

Deidara gives him a weary sort of look.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Old shit, get new material, blah, blah, blah. We've done this dumbass gig only fuckers could fall for, but that's what shit licking libidos are for."

It is a long standing, long established fact that Deidara looks like a girl. Hidan takes shameless advantage of that fact. It is why Deidara can only sigh.

A thought occurs to him. Somewhat belated, he glances around for the others, but Hidan only shakes his head. "Don't bother," he says. "They're not here for some shitty thing like this. Come on, you bastard, you're already ten minutes late."

Picking at his shirt, Deidara blithely ignores Hidan. The latter rolls his eyes, but indulges the blond. "What now?" Hidan says. Then pauses. "...Aw, hell fucking no! Deidara, the only sweetcheeks poontang available around here is you and your goddamn girliness. Seriously, what am I? A proposition? Fucker."

Deidara frowns slowly. Letting a hand rest on his hip, he glares.

Hidan, who is rather apt at deciphering Deidara, snorts. He eyes the other boy's crotch, leering. "Right. Right, kid, and you've got a shitty manthing to protect, huh? Masculinity threatened? Feeling too goddamn girlie for words?" His gaze snaps up. "If you don't want any more bastards in your fucking ass, then why don't you just find a fucking whore? Go on. Sidle up to one of those high school bitches. Mouth and suck that shit."

The look Deidara gives him is less hostile and more incredulous.

"All right, so I kid. You don't actually do any poor bastard. Have you got your shit? Might as well start drugging people left and right." Hidan snickers. "Bad, old men and their libidos forget to watch their wallets when it comes to the actual fucking. Let's select at least some fuckin' eye candy for tonight, eh? Don't want to make my pretty princess suffer needlessly."

Deidara ignores him. It is not easy, especially when Hidan slings an arm around his bare shoulders. Too smooth, too cool skin meets his, and Deidara is hard pressed not to jerk away. Hidan leans in close, intimate, and hisses in his ear, "Some fuckers still want to get a piece of your ass even when I do this. But, then, what are voyeurs for?" Unhesitatingly, the silver-haired boy draws his head forth and gives one long lap at the other boy's throat. Even as he suckles Deidara's throat, licking in between intervals, his eyes are busily taking in the sudden attention thrown their way. His teeth are bared in a cold grin.

With a sigh, Deidara obligingly plays the role of a besotted whore. He tilts his chin to the side, subtly giving his friend more room to work with, and a single electric blue eye flutters shut. He lets dazed ecstasy scrawl against his features. He lets himself sway and tremble as if he were really consumed in an indescribable haze of lust.

In truth, they are both incredibly sober.

Deidara beings to feel a little uncomfortable. Hidan goes around practically bare chested, so his skin is always a shade too cool. Hidan's nips are too hard, too carelessly rough, and the way he has shifted their position to become latched at the hips is not helping.

Stupid chains, Deidara thinks. Goddamn cold chains digging into my crotch.

One of these days, he thinks, he will tear off Hidan's stupid belt and bash his perfect, immaculate old man's hair with it.

But that is for another time.

Deidara inches closer, achingly, wantonly sliding little by little up Hidan's leg. The wall behind his back is sandpaper coarse as Hidan slams him against it, and Deidara grunts in muted pain. Free to use the structure as support, he reluctantly lets Hidan bring the two of them even closer. A hand creeps to his ass, and Deidara is suddenly wrenched deeper into the other boy's embrace. Chest touching chest, leg against leg, and hips—perfectly aligned. The blond throws his head back, mouth producing pants and groans as you please.

His neck is beginning to develop a crick; he does not appreciate Hidan banging away his head into the wall.

As they pulse and shudder against each other's bodies, Deidara is perfectly aware of what the two of them looks like. Scandalous gasps and barely heard gossip, along with other mundane exclamations and injections of shock—those straight-laced idiots. Others whistles, some leers, some _gasp_ along with their quivering bodies, but the two _lovers_ pretend not to notice any of it all.

It's not as if they were doing it right out in the streets for voyeurs to see, but their heated impromptu and fake makeout session is drawing in all the maggots and flies and bastards and voyeurs towards them. Godfucking perverts.

Their exchange turns clammy. The night air is humid, and Hidan is not helping. Grasping for that one last shred of authenticity, that cinching detail, Deidara ends it by making his first move—a hot, shuddering kiss that he carelessly mashes against Hidan's lips. He bites down hard, but Hidan's gaze is impassive, casual. Uncaring. The pain is nothing. Deidara unwittingly rolls his eyes; Hidan hadn't even flinched.

Blood dribbles down.

Deidara shoves him away, but the silver-haired boy is unmovable and leans in close. Palms are smashed against the wall on either side of Deidara's head. As Hidan ducks down, he creates an illusion that the exchange is not over; instead, he lets one salacious tongue lap at the unexpected blood around his mouth. Deidara is wholly unimpressed; he settles for a glare. Unrepentant. Hidan frowns.

"...Huh," he says, pulling away slightly. "Has it ever occurred to you how ridiculous our scheme seems sometimes?" He wipes whatever blood is left with a careless swipe of a thumb. He only succeeds in smearing it more.

Deidara shrugs, face bored and in agreement with Hidan's words; Hidan doesn't need to affirm something that's already been established. Deidara wonders what he is playing at.

Neither has a mind clouded with passion, lust, or some other inebriated daze; the encounter is the same as every other encounter, the scene is always the same. Their act is over, but Hidan has yet to give him any details. Surely there is at least one rich slob in the crowd or a sex-deprived, hard working salaryman watching them with pig eyes?

Deidara's brows furrow a bit. Why is the other boy delaying? Jabbering?

A frown still at his lips, Hidan drawls on, "I suppose whores will be whores—what, with all their gayass squealing uke and seme shit. But the fuckers? This time around they're a tad fuck different, blondie, and one of them wants you. Bad."

And Deidara suddenly realizes that Hidan is worried.

For all of the countless of times they've done this and Hidan decides to finally break _now_ and buy into his little girl act? His features twists. Deidara tries shoving him away again, but Hidan clamps down on his wrists with a vice grip. He is fairly glaring now, that apathetic boy; Deidara is jarred.

"Do I have to spell it out for you, you idiot?" Hidan says, clasping him harder, his words a purr. "I don't like the looks of this one. We are going to walk away this time around."

Deidara shoots him an incredulous glare.

"Yes, we are! This guy—" Hidan shakes his head, irate. "What the fuck, why am I trying to convince you? While you were busy closing your eyes and acting like you being being fucked to the next Tuesday, I saw this fucker's face. Seriously, Deidara, walk away."

Hidan's back is to the street: how he's managed to catch a glimpse of anyone's face while not turning his head is a mystery.

That's why I'm the uke and Hidan's the scout, Deidara thinks. Mouth pressing into a tight line, he raises brows high at Hidan. Very slowly, they detach from one other and straighten. Both look flush and pert, clothes mussed and hair ruffled, as if they just had one very good fuck.

It isn't so.

Flicking annoying, tangled tresses over his shoulder, Deidara is annoyed to find that Hidan is not even looking his way. The silver-haired boy is casually surveying the streets, completely ignoring him. Deidara pokes him, hard, gaze questioning but hard.

The other answers immediately. "Serial rapist murdering bastard, that's what." Hidan glances at him. "While we were play fucking, this fucker was ripping your a-hole to shreds in his sick head. And then some. Tangling with a sadistic bastard like that is just asking for shit to happen."

Deidara glare fades into something wary. The look he gives Hidan is pointed and clear. They take to the streets, arms brushing close, and Hidan laughs a little. His face may have been smiling, but his eyes are cold.

"Ah. Yeah, kid, S&M isn't all fun fucks and games unless you know exactly what kind of shit you're getting into. Don't try this at home." A pause. "Speaking of, where the fuck do you people live anyway? Under a goddamn rock, I bet?"

Suddenly, with no warning at all, Hidan slams Deidara into a nearby alleyway and shoves the two of them together against the darkened wall. Nervous but not fighting, Deidara plays along. He watches Hidan's face intensely, noting the unusually agitated expression. Nothing at all like Hidan.

A minute passes. Two, four, then five.

And when Hidan finally sighs, Deidara breathes a little easier.

"That fucker was following us," Hidan says in a quiet murmur. "Something about that guy just..."

Deidara fidgets slightly, uncomfortable from holding his position for so long.

His friend notices. "Ah, sorry." Releasing him, Hidan slaps a hand against his face, groaning. "What am I getting so fucking freaked over? That fucker's gone. Yeah."

Concerned, Deidara pokes him, but Hidan only gives him a tired grin.

Wordlessly, they leave their dingy hiding place.

The further away they've gone, the more at ease Hidan seems to feel. The silver-haired boy's shoulders are no longer taunt with tension and panic, his features no longer pinched and hard. His eyes no longer look so dangerous.

But Hidan's earlier behavior has put Deidara on edge. His friend is escorting him home, however casually, but Deidara knows it to be the truth.

Rather than becoming irritated with Hidan's sudden mothering, Deidara shoves a hand in his pocket and lets it grasp the knife. The switchblade's handle tightens in his grip, and it is comforting. City nightlife no longer trails after their steps like slinking shadows, and he is all too aware that Hidan is silent.

Something is wrong if Hidan doesn't even bother to make smalltalk. The boy is tense again, eyes clawing and watchful. One hand is deceptively shoved into a pocket Deidara knows carries a concealed gun.

Deidara breathes. Taking note of Hidan's actions, Deidara slides his free hand into his other pocket. The right side one. His fingers enclose around a bag.

And nothing happens. They reach his house and the walk there is dreadfully anticlimactic.

The lights are off, Deidara realizes. Strange. His annoying sister should have been still up by now, gossiping away to all of her girlfriends on her cellphone. It makes sense if his mother has turned in early, but what of his father?

Glancing at his friend with wary eyes, Deidara is more concerned with Hidan.

Just touching the other boy's arm lightly makes Hidan jerk, but Deidara calmly meets his eyes and motions towards the door.

Hidan gives a weary sort of nod.

They enter.

Systematically locking the door behind them and turning on the front hall light, Deidara wonders at the house's unnatural quiet. That in of itself isn't strange, but...where is Ino and all of her annoying jabbers? Her harpy screeches and girly screams should have been rumbling through the house by now.

Evidently, Hidan notices as well. His voice is blunt—too blunt—in the silence. "Where's your family, blondie?" Hidan has been told horrific stories about the shrieking decibels of Deidara's sister.

Deidara toys with the keys in his hands, thoughts slowing to an ebbing molasses flow.

Hidan shakes his head and mutters, "Forget it." He stomps ahead and into the kitchen, immediately raiding the expansive fridge. It is the first time Hidan's been here, but already he makes himself at home.

The nerve. But _normal_—blessed normal _Hidan_. Usually, such an inane thought would've merited at least a quirk of the lips, but tonight Deidara is too unsettled by his friend's previous paranoia.

Something else tugs at his attention. As Deidara stands in the hall, again puzzling over why there is a sense of _wrong_ blanketing the house, he shakes his head and joins in his friend's search.

Still, uneasiness pricks at him incessantly, urging him to check the bedrooms.

Why? he thinks, irate. The opened refrigerator door is the only thing casting light in the unlit room. The kitchen is too large, too dark. Pushing Hidan aside, Deidara snatches the first drink he sees. He snaps it open and guzzles it down, ignoring Hidan's stare.

Eyes shift towards him in question. Hidan shrugs.

"Just thought you looked a hell lot more at ease here than at school. Is that surprising to hear? Can't be because it's true."

Deidara swipes the hair out of his eyes and ties most of them back. Because his job is a hasty one, too many strands slip through his fumbling fingers. He huffs. Hidan grins and reaches over to pull at his demented, half-formed ponytail. Deidara lets him with a frown.

"It's fine. You looks less of a girl anyway." A shrug. "At school, everyone knows that if they call you that you'll fuck them twice over before stuffing pig guts in their faces."

Something quirks at Deidara's lips.

"Oh, yeah, the story's gone around hundreds of times before I started to punch the messenger." Hidan smiles slightly. "Did you know one bastard called you a shit-eating whore? And then I called you _my_ shit-eating whore, and then kicked the motherfucker where it hurts. If you were an attention seeking brat, the fuck would I hang with you then?"

His smile fades. "Kid, what's on your mind?"

Deidara jerks up a hand and stills. His brows are furrowed. Moving past Hidan, he searches the room, seemingly for something only he can see. Frustration crosses his face before he moves to the next room over, only to stumble at the darkened doorway.

Hidan squints. "What's up?" He pauses, seeing his friend freeze. Narrowing his eyes, the silver-haired boy steps forward. "...Deidara?"

No response. Warily, he turns to look at what Deidara is seeing.

And stops.

"What," Hidan says, working his jaw, "...the _fuck_ is this?"

Neither needs to turn on the light to know what he is seeing.

Deidara stands shock still, teetering. When his legs can no longer support him, he falls. He would've collapsed, too, had Hidan not have caught him.

"Whoa, whoa—! I've got you, kid, but...but this...is..."

Threatening to collapse to the floor, Deidara is set down carefully by Hidan before the latter steps forward, something wholly ugly and terrible twisting his features. Deidara can only paw helplessly at his mouth, retching dryly into his hands. His head is bowed, his half-assed ponytail already unraveling into a waterfall of shielding bangs.

"I," Hidan says very calmly, "am going to gut the fucker for you. I will slash off his balls, char and boil them, and feed the bastard his own shit. I'll open up his chest just so you can piss on his entrails. And all the while, I am going to keep him alive and _hurt_ him. Again. Again. And again.

"Deidara," he says, turning, unholy fervor alight in his eyes. "...Who in this family knows of your past? Who the fuck knows how your mom really died?"

Deidara only shakes his head wildly, unable to stop his desperate, dry heaving long enough to make motions calmly.

At the sight of his friend's suffering, something cools in Hidan's face. His gaze slants on Deidara, detached. He says, "You know that that's not your mother, right? This..._thing_."

But Deidara can only scrape his forehead against the floor. And shudder.

"...My guess is," Hidan says still in that strange mechanical voice, "the bitch tried following you when you left to meet me, and then ran into some nasty old guy who slashed her to ribbons and bits when she refused to give him some. But this body..."

A sort of lopsided, faint mockery of a smile flits across Hidan's face. "This is some nasty piece of work. If I remember right, this happened before. Similarly. Right?"

Deidara finally does throw up. His fingers claw helplessly against floorboards, scratching and tearing at the floor but the wood is resilient against his scrambling efforts. Deidara's frantic movements threatens to turn crazed, eyes wide and pulsating with unsaid horror.

Hidan finds what he is looking for. Carefully crouching in front of Deidara, he slides him a pad of paper. A pencil is dropped to the floor.

Deidara sets upon them like a hungry, desperate beast, tearing through the material in a wild, mindless terror. He snatches the pencil, scrawls with the lead and graphite. On his skin, on the floor, his hands, the paper—anything and everything that he can reach, he slashes at it with his shaking, shuddering utensil.

_Okaasan. okaasanokaasan okaasanokaasanokaasan okaasan oka_

The first sheet runs out of room. Deidara rips it from the bindings furiously and continues onto the next page without pause.

_asan okaasanokaasan okaasanokaasanokaasan okaasan okaasan_

"Deidara..." Hidan slumps before his best friend and looks at him with hooded eyes. "Deidara. _Deidara_. Stop. Please."

_Okaasan okaasan**OKAASAN OKAASANOKAASAN**_

"Deidara!"

The frantic mesh of kanji and romanji suddenly stops. The pencil stills, poised to write more. It cannot.

The tip has been ground down to nothing.

Something like a plaintive whine is at the back of his throat, despite the fact he cannot speak. When Deidara tries to make a stroke with the flattened end, something like distress spills onto his face. Like a child, he draws big, sloppy loops with the dead pencil, but the only thing produced are slight wood chips breaking off from the tip's edge.

"Deidara," Hidan says carefully. "I'm going to give you something else."

Hidan has no idea what the fuck he's doing. But he has to try. Muscles taunt and on edge, he slowly elevates himself and uses his body to block the view of who he assumes is Deidara's foster mother. He slowly sets down a pen.

Deidara picks it up, blank-faced. He looks at Hidan with one wide, vulnerable eye.

With a flash of intuition, Hidan realizes he _is_ in front of a child.

The ink tip tentatively touches blank white paper. It crawls into slow lines. Without looking away from Hidan, Deidara forms a single line of words. His eye has turned frighteningly intense and steely in that vague, blank-minded manner. It is a contradiction that freaks Hidan out.

He is almost afraid to take the piece of paper away.

Carefully tugging the paper towards him, all the while warily watching Deidara's face, he brings it close so he can read what it says. He stills.

_**sasori is gone**_

Through the last letter, the pen's moist tip has ripped through. The pen in question is clattered carelessly on the floor—_when_?—broken.

Now that his only entertainment has been taken away, Deidara falls flat on the floor but not on his face. He reaches out with childish, wobbling hands and plays with the ebbing pool of ink. Giggling. A disturbing image because there is no sound. Deidara is a silent black-and-white film playing over and over. A broken child.

And Hidan breathes.

--

_...Hidan?_

"_What?"_

_What do you see in your sleep?_

"_I dream about fucking your brains out 'cause some bastard's making me lose sleep. Now shuddup."_

_...Hidan?_

"_What."_

_I see my father's killer._

"_...Sasori? I thought you couldn't remember him."_

_Sometimes. Maybe. I'm...not sure. At times he's the only thing in my mind. I can't do anything but remember him, but if I force it...he's gone. I'm getting better at it, though. Sometimes he stays. Longer. Am I healing?_

"_Or maybe you just remember his face from your mom's murder."_

_..._

"_Deidara?"_

_I...don't know. I don't remember. He's not there anymore. No one is. Only Mother. But..._

_—there's someone else I couldn't see before. Someone I don't know. In my dreams, he's there now. Hissing. Grotesquely, he chases me on a slick belly bound to dirt—_

_Who he is? Hidan? Hidan? Who is there besides Mother?_

_I don't know know him._

_And I'm afraid._

_"But why are you afraid, Deidara? Why are you afraid when you can't even speak?"_

_...What are you talking about? Of course I can speak._

_I'm speaking right now, aren't I?_

* * *

Hm, um, no official Hidan/Deidara. It was part of their scheme involving compensated dating, a cultural context I've screwed because it usually involves girls and prostitution, not a pair of male blonds.

Yes, I enjoyed the fetal pig part.

Next chapter brings in...new characters. A weird choice of new characters in remade roles. I don't really like those high school fics that shove in all of the Akatsuki into underdeveloped, slapdash, comic relief slash drama slash romantic roles...which is why I only focused on Hidan this time.


	3. Police Interlude I

There are two different POVs, the first being the Yamanaka wife who gets killed off who is then, subsequently, not a character for the rest of the fic. Then, Shikaku is finally introduced in all his calculative genius glory.

I am highly aware I'm practically thrashing through this fic's progress. School is literally next week and chases me towards the finish...

* * *

As a young mother, she lavishes Ino with all her love and attention. The girl is wonderful and beautiful and bright, but she has become spoiled.

She wonders if its her fault, her inexperience, that makes her fail as a mother. Perhaps she isn't strict enough, she wonders. But denying her baby girl anything is so, so hard.

At least Ino isn't rude or without tact. Her daughter is pretty enough but not extraordinary so. This half way point is the best conciliation between plain and beautiful.

She must find herself a good man, the mother thinks. She must hurry and settle down.

But Ino is not interested in men in terms of marriage. When she thinks of men, she thinks of them in a most lustful manner that worries her mother.

Perhaps Ino will grow out of it, she thinks. Maybe it's a good sign that she's interested in clothes, although the brand names littering the girl's closet are a distasteful sight...but at least it is feminine one? And her studies? What of her studies? Ino may not enjoy school in particular, but she does well nonetheless.

This should please her, the mother. And she is. She's so proud of her little girl.

But Ino is showing subtle signs of not wanting to marry. She is staying out longer. She is enjoying a vivacious nightlife. She is in want of work.

It's not alarming at first. Simple jobs here, easy jobs there...but soon Ino starts to expand her horizons, latching onto the idea of life beyond the home. And the jobs! Soon, that girl is enthralled with her late night job at...at this garish club. This girl is now fasting becoming an adult, is now acting beyond cooking, cleaning, and housewifely things.

The mother misses her sweet little girl, the one who used to clutch at her skirts and loved being taught how to cook. Now Ino is all grown up...

"Who will support you? When will you marry? Why won't you listen to me?" She wants to yell all these things, but of course she doesn't. Ino is, surprisingly, taking herself seriously—pacing herself, even. She's earning her savings, gradually learning the art of independence...she should be proud of Ino. And she is.

The world is a dangerous place. She just doesn't want to see Ino hurt.

When she learns of a prominent artist's death in the area, she isn't too concerned. But when she learns the artist's name, she is afraid.

"Inoichi," she says, clutching his arm. "Inoichi, are you...have you...?"

Her husband doesn't say a word. That night, he silently readies for bed and grieves for his dear friend.

They were classmates, she believes, at the same university. Didn't they have the same art seminar? And Inoichi always did cherish his friendships more than most...

She wonders how she can help him when she knows she cannot, that she is powerless. Helpless.

It is a private grief that she has no part of. She met Inoichi long after he'd graduated, which is why she has never professed an interest to this part of his past before...

What is more important than focusing on the home, her family? They are the world to her, but now she feels guilty that she's never made an effort to be involved with her husband's previous life. What was he like? How did he do in school? Questions like these gnaw at the guilt in her and make anger bubble up inside.

Well, why should she be so concerned with Inoichi's past? Why is anything more important than the present? This artist, this man her husband is friends with—have they ever met privately before? Has either one of them made an effort to seek each other's company outside of university life? To form a good camaraderie, who is this man who holds such power over her husband to make Inoichi break down at the man's funeral...?

Why, she despairs, did that man die? Why does this have to happen now when Inoichi and she have long settled into marriage? Why does this...this reclusive _painter_ have to take away the attention she used to adore from her husband? Who is this man who breaks the tranquility of their quiet lives? Why must he disturb them? Why must he cause her husband to neglect...

Why now? Why is that man dead, and why does Inoichi even _care_?

Anxious over Ino, anxious over her husband, this is the time when Deidara enters her carefully constructed life. A life that is slowly breaking apart, falling down.

But she is tenacious and stubborn, even as the grasp gluing her family together is tenuous...at best. Unraveling at its fine seams, if the housewife doesn't keep the household together, who will?

When Deidara arrives, he shatters that glue. He rips apart her efforts. He stomps on them until they are in irreparable pieces. He despises her—she knows he does. Why else does he bring abnormality into her home? For what reason is there to justify that normalcy is now an incomprehensible failure?

But even with all the grief Deidara brings her, she can still not forget her first impressions of him; they are long lasting.

When Inoichi brings a strange boy home, _the artist's son_, she refuses to compromise. She does not want him in the house and most certainly not as an adopted son.

And yet...he's hurt. A lovely little bird who does not speak; the Deidara of her memories is a wonderful darling who gives her no trouble at all. For a moment all is well. This moment is but a fleeting speck of time, a sum of numerous years that feel nothing but a week.

Things change when she sees him torture for the first time.

And she becomes ill. Nauseated. Her world is collapsing around her, and Deidara can do nothing but smirk. Her husband doesn't understand; can he not notice how their livelihood unravels about their shoulders?

Why is this happening to her? Why does this have to happen?

Why is Kami-sama so cruel?

Please, she begs. Please keep my family together. Please don't break us, don't let this happen to us. Please.

She wants her daughter back, the baby she makes as her precious eye. And her husband of old, that caring and kind, gentle Inoichi...why can't things go back to the way they were before?

Deidara. She can no longer recall that little boy of eight who first crosses over her threshold.

She is falling. The world is falling.

Pain. Something is bubbling deep within her womb, clawing its way up her spine, and _retching into her brain..._pain.

It hurts, Inoichi. It hurts.

Slowly fluttering eyes open and shut, she feels a crushing numbness taking her body away, away...

She looks down.

Blank, bleak, she can't feel her legs anymore. They aren't _there_ anymore. Hacked, tattered, something all too heavy and oppressive clouds her mind. There is despair. Pain.

She wants to scream.

A bubble of hysteria arises in her, spurred on by the blood that spurts in her face.

Her legs. They're _gone_.

She looks up into the face of her killer. And smiles.

--

The woman is a mockery of an effigy. Of what? Her legs are splayed wide, her simple skirts and layers bunched at the hip. Her wrists are strung together and are stabbed to the wall by an an enormous nail, forcing her arms to hang above her head, it is like a parody of Christ.

Those wires bite down the skin in deep soft, surrender. Circled round and round, the tethers are merely unbent metal hangers, tied so hard they cut into milky, pliant flesh. The extremities are purple and pulpy, looking about to burst. Circulation's been cut off, he notes rather detachedly.

The clothes are torn, but it is difficult to tell whether she's been raped or not. Why? He crouches low and stares into the cavern that is her womb, the thighs being hacked at the roots. Unhesitatingly, he clicks on a small flashlight he has unhooked from his belt and shines the light into her most secret orifice. Nearby, a coworker retches. Another has to leave the premises immediately.

He ignores them all, mind running wildly and smoothly to take in all details, even the most minute, even the most distasteful. Mentally crossing out all uneeded facts, he immediately categorizes and organize the knowledge's he's gained. Information is filtered instantaneously.

Sighing, he knows he's the only one with enough nerve to do this. He will not lose his composure entirely over a little gore; he is rather desensitized to it. He leans forward slightly, shoulders haunched as he surveys the damage.

Whatever phallus shaped objects the killer had been able to get his hands on, it's there, plunged deep inside of the woman. Short, grounded pencils, varying from worn to new. Sticks, with splintered ends, and capped plastic pens. Metallic kitchen utensils, like a spoon, shoved unhesitatingly towards the woman's uterus—everything and anything, it's there. There is no question in anyone's mind that were the woman alive, she'd be sterile by now.

The brutal creativity astounds him. The sight is disgusting, no doubt, but there is a jauntiness to it all. Like artwork produced from a proud papa, it's so clear.

The killer not only takes pride in his work, he treats a kill as his own child.

Such meticulous care, the man thinks. Such obvious relish.

Something catches his attention immediately. A knife, he sees, is still stuck in a jagged and hazardous cut, standing out to him as strange. To leave the knife alone in its place...is that the decision of a meticulous executor? A small, minor detail overlooked by all and overshadowed by the gore—but _this man_ does not overlook it or underestimates its value.

Any other officer would have ignored it, not realizing its significance. Any other officer would be a fool, acting without the experience or the eyes as this particular man does.

But why? Why does the man puzzle so much over this one detail over the next? He takes in the sight once more, immediately traverses multitudes of mental paths, and comes to one conclusion.

Leaving the knife within the body after death is an unusual choice amongst the _unrestrained_ artistry of the murder. And there is a definite, clear element of there being no restraint. Brutal, horrific murder, yes...but there is no grace. There is only a _sick_ sort of amusement to be had, but the killer has not defined this kill by the principles of grace.

Blatantly mutilating a mother's womb and nailing her to the wall of her living room, knowing full well that the real target—her son—would be the first to walk in onto the scene...

Arrogance. Egotistical arrogance; there is no grace to be had, no restraint. There is nothing here but joyous sadism, entirely without the solemn reverence the killer Sasori graces each and every one of his victims. Characteristic of the legendary killer's M.O. is the obvious unsaid words of _but there can be more_.

The original is not such a mindless brute; Sasori has a restraint that he exercises with every murder—those same words of _but there can be more_...done. There can be more _done_, just as he could have easily killed Deidara at the same he took the boy's eye, just as that monster could have chosen to rape an innocent child _at the same time_. But the blond boy had been ignored, only coming away with half broken vision, and the rest of that night's horror takes place when the artist killer turns his back attention towards the father to finish the job.

Sasori, above all, enjoys his kills and exacts each wound, each scar, with meticulous, fastidious care. Therefore, whereas his victims should have come out looking unthinkably abused, they don't, not to the extent they could have been damaged. His is a subtle horror, a quiet terror—but absolute. Still, Sasori does not lose himself in a frenzy, does not kill for the misshapen, random sake of killing...and definitely not carry out his murders by going against his own rules of grace.

There is something deeply wrong with this woman's murder, and it is not the method of her death.

Sloppy. That's the only way the man can put it. If there is any _true_ artistry to this particular homicide, it would be a sloppy, hazardous grace. Wild abandon, mindless relish... and _uncharacteristic_ with the rest of the woman's carefully placed scars. Clashing...yes, clashing with the supposed perfectionist's M.O.. As if...this killer has tried too hard and has slipped up.

There are other blades, of course, most of the sharp implements being strewn around the room. Only abandoned and not plunged within the body, he knows, because their purpose has long finished: to widen the birth canal, opening it in the most forceful and degrading of manner.

There is even a peeking butt end of a cigarette in there, shoved in among the other objects. There are probably more; ash dribbles down wounded flesh...flecks of gray among the clotted, mottled red.

A narrow of the eyes as a new revelation appears; cigarettes that were still burning _upon death_. He can tell—there are marks of minor burns, tiny enough to be unassuming, but the carved and slashed open flesh of inner, sanctum walls are _peppered_ with them.

Almost overwhelmed with the anarchy stark fresh before him, the man hangs back his head and breathes. He absently tucks his flashlight away. His eyes are squeezed shut with a deep, born horror that he does not give words to.

The man does not want to open his eyes. But he does—he has to.

He notes her throat, a seizure of muscle and veins frozen there. A twisted smile touching her lips, the thumping palpitations of her once fluttering eyes...he can see it all.

The torso, he thinks, struggling to recapture his composure, is unmarred. Untouched.

He doesn't know whether to thank God or not, and it is this incredible thought that nearly forces him to cave to hysteria, to lose his composure completely.

This a mockery of life, and the only reaction he can give is a slight tightening of the lips. Though he appears unmoved, in his mind the world slows to a halt and only the corpse is in the room with him. He can see only her, and everything else...fades. Everything else is insignificant at this moment, so...so terribly inconsequential.

His private, silent moment is interrupted. "Captain. All of the family members have been recovered."

The man's gaze rapidly cools. He doesn't answer his subordinate immediately, only waves him away. "Ah," he says. "I see. And the family? How long since they've been transferred to the hospital?"

"An hour, sir. They're...they're fine—no, that is, the father and daughter are injured, but..."

"What of the others?"

"The team, sir? They're currently waiting for you to...finish."

The man stands. "I've seen enough. Wrap this up. I'll give my assessment tomorrow as usual." Walking away, he tosses the words over his shoulder. "Forward the rest of the evidence to my desk, physical copies. Don't give Yakushi any. Get me this family's files—everything. I want all their info and all their contacts by the morning, and I want a hospital update as soon as their situation is secured."

"Yes, sir," the officer says, choking, "but who, sir? Who could have—?"

The man pauses at the door. "This is nothing compared to the monster's usual work. This is absolutely..._nothing_ at all." The man releases a rough breath. "There's no need to profile the monster when it's so clear whose work this is." _Or isn't_, he thinks.

"Sir?"

All the anger drains away. He turns to look at his subordinate with an impassive face. "Don't dwaddle," the man says. "Get to work, Yoroi."

"And...and what about Officer Yakushi? Sir, isn't he—"

"No. Do as you're ordered. Yakushi's suspension is for the duration of this investigation. Get me those files." His thoughts are jumbled, which reflects in his choppy, disorganized words. He furiously motions his subordinate away. "Go. Do it!"

When the officer quickly leaves, he slumps against the wall and clasps his face in his hands. It is the first emotional display he allows himself, the first lapse in control...

Will it be the first? he thinks.

But his despair is not stemmed from shock; he knows full well he's expected this day to come.

"Akasuna no...Sasori. He's come back. Finally—God, _why_." He stills suddenly, realization punching his gut so fast he is gasping for breath. "..._No_. No, no, no, this isn't his work. I _know_ Sasori—this isn't his work. Central focus on the vagina, brutal attention to this one area...yes, that's his style. But that knife, something about it...I don't know what, but—why has it taken him eleven years to come back? What was he waiting for?"

An old, lingering memory slinks into his thoughts. The man closes his eyes.

"...Oh, God. Oh, fuck. Not this again. It was...a theory, just a thought. I was _wrong_. I thought there was substance to it back then, but when a decade's passed with no activity...no. It can't be." Forcefully, he jerks up a hand and slams it into the wall; his flung open eyes are fierce. "_No_. I'm a fool to think that. Don't go there, Nara, just don't—no. It is. It is true, isn't it? _It's_ _true_..."

He stumbles against the wall, a hand griping his face. "I was right. Whether it's ten years ago in the past or ten years in the fucking _future_, I will always be right." Fumbling for a cigarette, and then remembering the woman, he crushes the pack and flings it away. His laugh is terse and short of breath, voice morbidly triumphant even as it is hallow. "So even as Cassandra crows, Troy falls and all the crowd turns away their ears...but _she _believes. Which means, _I_ have to believe. My intellect, my theories—they will crumble to scrutiny if I don't have faith in my own abilities."

He calms. The analytical bent of his mind has seized back control, and the man is glad.

"Okay. Okay, after a long period of inactivity, rumors came about the _legend_ being dead. Missing? Never to return? The police seized it, prettying up the affair, saying Sasori was dead..." A bitter twist to that smile. "Ah. And herein lies the problem: he sure as hell doesn't _look_ dead right now. And this is going to cause a public stir...politics. It's all about the politics."

Settling into this newfound, extraordinary bout of composure, he breathes and gathers his rattled thoughts. "Copycat," he says immediately. "Everyone is going to assume it's a copycat. Right."

Shaking his head, he stands and begins to pace. "...But is a copycat no better than a half-assed stuttered explanation? Copycats don't pop up ten years after a serial killer's spree; they take advantage of current media heat, letting the true killer be the scapegoat for his crimes..." His eyes close in contemplation as he absently begins to mutter out words to himself, his thought processes.

A plan forms. Flexing his hands, he absently goes back over the details, thinking it a functional enough plan. Not perfect, but all of the puzzle pieces have not yet been put into their places...

For example, where is the real Sasori? Having established that the murder is not to Sasori's credit isn't good enough—he intends to find out _who did it_. Not only that, if alive where is the real Sasori? How does one go about luring out a phantom?

He already knows the answer to that.

But he cannot ignore the other possibilities. Copycat, he thinks, _copycat_...what are the potential copycat's motives, goals? What is he trying to accomplish?

As he toys with the thought, an officers enters the house, searches the room, and shoots his superior a questioning look. The Nara distractedly gives the go-ahead.

The subordinate nods sharply and motions to the people waiting beyond the doorway. A forensics team soon swarms in past them, but the Nara has gotten what he needed. He doesn't need the time to survey an undisturbed crime scene anymore.

He walks out of the house, face calm, eyes half-lidded and contemplative. His coworkers give him a wide berth, easily recognizing the expression on the Nara's face and how dire the consequences are to disturb the man when he is thinking.

But said man doesn't care, too consumed by thoughts of the killer's identity. There is something else I'm forgetting, he thinks. Something that the murder has almost completely driven from his mind...

A file is promptly handed to him. An update from the hospital.

_Oh_, the Nara thinks, frowning when he realizes what he's forgotten. _Don't tell me_...He takes it, glances at it, and then turns away.

_Yamanaka_, the paper screams. He idly brings back his gaze and forces himself to read.

And sighs.

_Father, thirty eight, alive but has suffered blunt force trauma to—_

Crumpling the paper, he shoves it into a pants pocket and walks away. His face has hardened without his knowing, but his eyes are tinged with regret.

"After this mess is over," he says, muttering, "when this is all over, then I can forget I ever had a friend named Yamanaka Inoichi."

He stops to stare up at the sky in silence, watching as dawn breaks for day. Not one for sentimentality, he scowls and slouches away.

* * *

Next chapter is biased towards Shikaku's perspective and fully develops his character, and by doing so will justify that spectacular finale. But, you know, what the heck's up with this site? It lists Shikaku's name as "Shikato." I'm appalled.

I can tell you right now that Deidara doesn't show up for the next chapter either. Instead, this interlude/arc is happening to transition Deidara to his development into the boy of the summary. Meaning? The real plot is happening soon.

But why did Shikaku flip? What's this theory he keeps talking about? What's with the falling out with Inoichi? And, most importantly, is this the avant of the real Sasori or just a creepy copycat?


	4. Police Interlude II

A wealth of info and much implications. There's a slightly different tone, but only because I really get into the grit of Shikaku's character. With this chapter, Shikaku's resolve should be firmly established, along with his character/personality.

No gore this time...even though I miss it like a second arm. The 'truth' about the copycat comes to light. My darling Nara's going to throw you all for a loop.

* * *

"...It reeks of his M.O.. Check it, the linked cases a decade ago."

"What, again? To the same damn _kid_? What's so special about him?"

"I think we're all getting tired of hearing the kid's name." A pause. "Hey. Nara, you lazy bastard. Stop sleeping. I know you're awake."

"...mmphuh..."

"_Nara_. Get your ass over here, we've got a copycat on our hands."

"Is that guy...really my superior?"

"The department only sends us the best." A roll of the eyes. "This division alone is swamped with nutcases. Send crazies to deal with crazy murderers, they say. You're new here, but don't underestimate Nara Shikaku _if he'll get off his lazy __fucking __ass_."

No response.

An exasperated sigh. "Anyways, we're dealing with a copycat of _Akasuna no Sasori_, Sasori of the Red Sands."

"Why a copycat? Why not the real thing?

"When you were transferred here, didn't you read the files? Sasori must be well in his forties by now, and he hasn't popped up within the last ten years. And now all of the sudden _this _shit happens?" A shake of the head. "When the Yamanakas got a hold of the boy, I thought I wouldn't have to deal with Sasori's shit again. Boy adopted, killer gone. Now? Now it looks like I have to—"

"Did you say," a deceptively mild voice says, "Yamanaka?"

"Oh. So you're up. Wait, you know the Yamanaka kid?"

"The boy, no." Shikaku slowly stands from his seat, expression oddly blank. "...Who did you say he was?"

"I didn't." Shikaku's partner flipped through some papers, their subordinate standing awkwardly by. "Eh, Yamanaka Deidara, seventeen, made ward-of-the-state when he was seven until his legal adoption at eight by Yamanaka Inoichi, thirty-eight, who was slated to take in the kid anyway by the father's will. Father died back in '87, the mother at '88. The latter's killer is not confirmed officially. Unofficially, Sasori of the Red Sands got to them both—"

"The mother was not an artist."

"Excuse me?"

"Akasuna no Sasori," Shikaku says slowly, "did not choose his victims unless they had artistic ability."

"...Shikaku," his partner says. "That homicide was right up Sasori's alley. There couldn't have been anyone else."

"Wrong." Shikaku deftly snatches the files from the other man. "...It says here that paintings of Sasori were confiscated eleven years ago. What did the paintings look like? '_A man with the appearance of someone in his tentative late teenage years, possibly early adult. The artwork displays a youthful face without stubble, leading evidence to the former'.._..Does that sound like a man in his thirties to you? At the time of the father's death?"

"The painter was biased in his perception," his partner argues. "We can't treat the paintings as real evidence because of the nature of the relationship the painter had with Sasori."

"True," Shikaku says softly, "we can't use the paintings officially, but we can't discount the other victims. You know very well another man had drawn Sasori very much the same way in '83. The subject was much younger, obviously, but it was still Sasori."

A twitch, but that is all; Shikaku marvels at the man's cool. His partner goes on. "So all we can rely on is a morbid timeline of artwork?"

"To place his age? It's a start, but I wouldn't trust any old paintings either. It's not important to figure out the mystery of his age anyway."

"Then, why...?"

"The copycat theory you mentioned. Have you ever thought about the possibility of Sasori having had a _partner_?"

"..."

Shikaku slowly shakes his head. "This Deidara encountered the real Sasori face-to-face in '87 at the scene of his father's death. Sasori was notorious for his ability of disguise. Why do you think he was so good at infiltrating his victims' households and gaining their confidences within years? Intelligent, amoral, and obviously charismatic. There was a kind of...artistry to his kills."

"_Captain_!"

"..." In contrast to the newbie's shout, Shikaku's partner says nothing at all. He listens to the Nara, stone-faced. Stoically.

The air is suddenly tense.

Shikaku frowns, rubbing at a throbbing temple. "Anyway," he says, "Sasori didn't bother to discredit his own homicides. He didn't leave a calling card, but he made it pretty plain what killed who, where. Why come back to kill the mother? To finish the job? What job? In his mind, the job was already complete. Killing the mother had no point to him, no merit. It was the same with the kid."

"Are you saying that Sasori, the real one, is not alive?"

"In all honesty? I haven't the fucking clue." Shikaku yawns wide, missing the flash in his partner's eyes. "I don't even know if this copycat killer is the one in the same as Sasori's supposed partner or if Sasori even _had_ a partner at all. However, it would explain why Sasori wasn't portrayed as an _old man_ in the paintings from a decade ago; his partner must have been training him as his protégé."

He feels rather than sees his partner's shock. The bespectacled man gathers his cool remarkably well after being thrown that bombshell, but Shikaku notes the hands his partner has placed in his pockets. Deceptively casual, deceptively slow, but it may as well as be a shove for all the tension running through his partner's arms.

It would've fooled anyone else, but Shikaku is anyone but anyone else.

He goes carelessly on, lazily watching his partner. "This damn M.O. has been going on even when Sasori should've been a kid. Could a kid kill like that, honestly? Makes sense if the little psycho was being taught by the elder psycho, doesn't it? Ultimately, if you think about it..._Sasori_ may have been the copycat this whole time, with our present copycat being the real thing."

How disappointing. He's given his partner too much time and now that perfect emotional fortress is complete; Shikaku's latest speculation doesn't even faze the man

He speaks after a pause, that bespectacled man. "Something doesn't add up. What was the partner's motive for killing the mother?"

Shikaku shrugs, shooing the newbie out of the room. He is already bored with the conversation, tired of hearing himself speak. "Poontang?"

"Nara. Be serious."

"I am serious." Shikaku sighs, reluctantly biting out each word. "So serious, in fact, I've already taken control of this whole investigation."

Shikaku sees the fortress crack. "Nara, you can't...!"

"I don't think you understand, Yakushi." He turns surprisingly cold, apathetic eyes onto his partner. "I was sent back over here for a reason, not to be wasted on minor crap. Much as I would love to get my ass out of this troublesome case, it was deemed that with your personal involvement with a victim, you can no longer make objective decisions as a leader. Do you understand?"

Shikaku sees the moment the fortress is forged anew.

Kabuto's face has gone utterly blank.

"Do you understand?"

"Per...fectly. Sir."

Shikaku shakes his head, pulling out a cigarette pack. "You're not my subordinate, Yakushi, but neither are you my partner." He thumbs it open, then shoves it away. "Not until this mess is over."

In his pockets, Kabuto's hands clench into sudden fists. His voice is wrought with tension. "The bastard killed my mother, Nara. I want him dead."

"No. We may not even be dealing with the real Sasori in the first place. Killing a copycat or a potential partner is not going to bring back your father, _Officer _Yakushi."

"Deidara survived. Three fucking times."

"And suffers for it. Don't begrudge him for having the same thing as you did—an adoptive parent. Now, his is dead. How will you respond? Your place on this team is already suspended, but if you do anything troublesome your position will be jeopardized. They'll pull you out of this department entirely."

"I don't sympathize with the kid."

"Good. Don't. Any more involvement and someone high up will go anal retentive on us. You've seen the shit Danzou can pull." At Kabuto's closed expression, Shikaku slaps himself on the head and scratches at his hair. "Che...you can stop with the attitude now, Yakushi. You're a goddamn profiler. Give me some of that professionalism. Like it or not, I'm stuck with you until this whole mess is canned and dumped."

Kabuto sighs, glaring at nothing in particular. "Aren't I kicked off the team?"

Shikaku's lazy, slow grin is feral. "Not unless the team leader sees that you're unfit for the job. They can't do anything to my kiddies without my go ahead."

Unwittingly, Kabuto smiles. "You mean, they can't afford to piss you off."

"Or lose me. Hhm, yeah, that pretty much sums up everything...oh. Right. Are you unfit for the job, Yakushi?"

Kabuto is grinning now. "Fuck no, sir."

"Hope that's in the positive because your shitty grammars implies differently."

"Same to you, sir."

Shikaku coughs, fumbling for a cigarette. "Just call me by name, moron."

--

When Shikaku first learns of an artist's death eleven years ago, he admits he'd been the first one to say 'I told you so' to any passerby who'd listen.

It's not that he has a callous outlook on life, a jaded lifestyle full of hate, or any sort of that nasty business. Nara Shikaku thinks he has a rather healthy respect for life, actually.

He'd gone and impregnated his wife, hasn't he?

And because he has such a healthy respect for life, he realizes quickly to stay out of her way without letting the wife catch onto the fact that he is treating her like a pariah. Of course.

But it's true, he argues. Who else but a man with a healthy respect for life would value his own oh so very much? And during a woman's pregnancy? He has self-preservation instincts, doesn't he? He just exercises them more often than most people.

Most people are shitty idiots who don't deserve his respect anyway. The more they die off, the less stupidity in the world. And the world needs less stupidity, Shikaku thinks. Life is too short without it coming and screwing things over.

Take Yamanaka Inoichi for instance. Great guy. Great friend—well, fuck it, the _best damn pal_ in the whole of the goddamn universe. Does that make the man a smart man? No, it does not.

Too kind, too gentle, too...well, this Nara has just seen already too much of the world to be a philanthropist in any way, shape, or manner. Inoichi is like that cotton candy. You really want to eat it, a lot...maybe even the whole damn thing, but is it good for you? Not in the long run: it'll rot your teeth.

Thinking like this doesn't make him cruel, angry. Crazy. It just means that his humor is darker than most, his language coarser than most, his attitude lazier than most...the list goes on.

Because when a man has seen too much of the damn world, enough to be sick of walking out that front door, Shikaku figures he has a right to be lazy. Bemoaning the troublesome aspects of life, flitting about his peers, mocking them with his easygoing attitude...what amazes him is that they actually believe all of that. This farce. They don't bother to see underneath the underneath—when they look at him, _they believe his farce_. This stupidity abound in his workplace frustrates him.

Because Shikaku is not a damn lazy sonuvabitch: he's damn scared.

He's scared that he'll have to bury his wife someday or that she'll have to bury him. Either one of them has to happen, and he doubts she will commit suicide with him. A lover's finest death, but Yoshino isn't so melodramatic.

He's also scared whenever he thinks about what the world will throw at his hapless son, all the shitty crap and tumbles Shikaku doesn't want to wish on anyone's brat. He's scared shitless, he is. Too many alternatives, too many variables...there just isn't one math algorithm to trap the confines of the world to, no magic solution to all of life's aches and pains.

So, yes, Shikaku is afraid. He's frightened by the possibilities he can't bear to see play out before his eyes.

Is it such taboo to laugh at the long ago dead? Because Shikaku wants to do that, badly, when he thinks of the events of eleven years ago. He wants to laugh hysterically, uncontrollably because he's a regular Cassandra, he is, a regular cheap mystic psychic to have foreseen what everyone has closed their eyes to.

Eleven years ago when Shikaku had less standing, less power, and a hell lot more idealism, his intelligence was a goddamn curse. What was the use of being born a genius if he couldn't even use his intellect for good? To save lives? When no one would believe him, even laughed at him? Mocked him? What good was it to have the passion—_compassion—_for anybody when all they did was spit back into your face?

Of course things have changed within the last decade. People actually listento Shikaku now. They are terrified of losing his opinions. But a Nara never forgets, much less this one.

Shikaku is a vindictive bastard; he doesn't forget. His intellect doesn't afford him to.

So when rumors creep past the grape vine and entwine the man in old suspicions and thoughts, Shikaku ignores them. Rumors are rumors with only a shred of credibility. Might as well lay back, sunbathe, and raise that tinkling glass of wine until the higher ups comes to _him_.

And so they do. Shikaku doesn't even needed to lift one finger of effort to catch their attention. The moment the old bastard Sasori rises from whatever hellhole he's buried himself in, I'm your man, he thinks. I'm that old fucking Conscience that says, "Hey, wasn't he the guy who could have saved all of those goddamn high profile lives...?"

Politics, politics; Shikaku once was a slave to its tune, dancing to the amusement of his superiors. Now he's the one in control. He's the puppeteer—at long last.

Only to find the job infinitely tired. Machinations and manipulations are just ridiculously hard to maintain, he finds, and not anywhere near worth the effort. Sure, the results are most likely going to be spectacular and provide rich opportunity to flash a whole of shit eating grins, but it's just too much work.

Why orchestrate the entire operations from behind in a egotistical need to vindicate your ability when you have to juggle everything in the dark?

Why the need to be a control freak when you can just...give the players a little push?

Watch 'em roll, the snowballing bastards. Butterfly and Domino Effects behold.

So instead of chasing after troublesome rumors like a foolish baboon—like everybody seems to be doing, headless chicken routine and all—Shikaku sits back and watches the flames. Meanwhile, old men in new suits that have probably never tasted gore want him to take over a reopened case. Take over Yakushi Kabuto's investigation, to be exact.

Shikaku is wholly unimpressed. Clean up your own damn mess, he wants to say. But of course he doesn't. Who else is going to put the food on the table? His ailing wife?

And when Shikaku picks at his ear until he finally clears a hole, he starts hearing the most interesting of things.

So Shikaku accepts the job. He goes behind his partner's back and snatches Yakushi's case for himself. Because when it's ripe with pickings and opportunities and old unwashed, dirty laundry, who can resist? Certainly not he, even with all the work involved, the work entailed, the work he is obligated to do.

Because when he catches Akasuna no Sasori, he is going to laugh—and laugh _hard_. It'll be all worth it in the end. Until then, he'll just have to crank his tired old gears and keep his creaking body from toppling on some hapless sap or newbie.

He's not that old, he thinks. But sometimes it doesn't make a difference. Everyone treats him like a holy ancient relic, ready to save them all! Unlikely. Is anyone aware of the _work _involved—?

His body may be the physical manifestation of his genes and fast approaching old age, but his mind is still pinprick sharp. It isn't going to fail on him anytime soon.

Sometimes, he wishes it would.

He just wants to...stop and see the scenery. Smell the fresh air, take a moment to enjoy the simplicity of inactivity—so uncomplicated. A moment where he is doing nothing at all, fulfilling no obligations or troublesome tasks. That fixed moment in time dedicated to himself, the relaxation of Me. A time when no one expects anything from him at all, when he is beneath the notice of his superiors...

Those flitting moments are long gone, have been for many years now.

The world can go rot for all he cares.

When the artist dies, Shikaku says it just like that.

Go rot, world. Go fucking die.

_WHY DID THE ARTIST DIE WHY COULDN'T I SAVE HIM WHY DID NO ONE LISTEN TO ME._

Justice needs a pawn, and Shikaku is a mighty pawn.

Eleven years ago and Shikaku pieces together a puzzle that has the power to stop a massacre. His theory is a simple one, so profoundly obvious that the genius knocks his head into the wall for not thinking of it any sooner.

Twenty-some year old Nara Shikaku realizes that Akasuna no Sasori has a partner. Or, more likely, a _master_. A trainer. A _teacher_.

And no one gives a fucking damn.

He's forty now. Unbelievable, he thinks, that it comes to light only now, that an expert profiler like _Yakushi Kabuto_ is agape at such a simple piece of news. It's all about progression, a train a thought. It's all about the puzzle pieces, and how to put them back together again.

It's all about common fucking sense.

And Shikaku has more. More thoughts, more plans, more theories. He has more, more, more. But he knows no one would believe him so he knows to shut up and stay quiet. They can't handle the truth, he assures himself. Their brains would fucking blow.

Still, leading a team, being at the beck and call of eager fat men in suits?

Nostalgic, bitter irony.

To think, he's been once equated to an insane person. Now, they are letting the lunatic take his pick of the asylum.

To the Trojan woman with the god gifted curse of seeing the future, he salutes her.

I feel your pain, he thinks. But I'm above you, Cassy dearie. I can _do_ things now.

But that doesn't mean Shikaku actually wants this life anymore. It doesn't mean that he's eager for more work.

Because he's _Nara_ Shikaku, a married man. And he can't get any more satisfied than that.

He loves Yoshino. All of her nagging and horrific mood swings is worth it in the end. Shikaku just wants to hold his _son_, he just wants to...

Yet something about yesterday's murder doesn't sit right with him. It frightens him. He may have made his theory about the supposed existence of Sasori's partner sound reasonable to Yakushi, but...if that's the case then the situation's worse than anyone realizes.

A killer with the exact same methods as Sasori, a genius _copycat_ who has never let on his presence to the world...

An intelligent man knows to hide his intellect.

Yesterday, he had firm suspicions about the murderer not being Sasori, maybe not even being a copycat, maybe being the theorized _partner_. Now that he has researched the family's background...

The murdered Yamanaka, she wasn't an artist either. And her wealthy predecessor, Deidara's biological mother—she wasn't an artist either. Irrevocable proof that both murders can't be credited to the real Sasori.

The connections between the present and past makes Shikaku cringe.

Partner, copycat...either way that knife in the Yamanaka homicide had been a subtle slip up on the killer's part. A copycat not having had researched his inspiration enough? A partner trying too hard?

Yakushi...is too caught up in the finer details, too wrapped up in his hate for Sasori. Oh, the man may hide it well, Shikaku lazily acknowledges, but Yakushi is too eager to pursue the case to a close. It doesn't take a genius to realize why.

Sasori's partner. It is such a simple concept. Shikaku presents himself confidently enough, but there is that small slip of doubt in him...

No. His theory still holds true. A near thirty years of killing, Sasori being profiled by the victims as a still young man...a wealthy society woman's death following her artist husband's...

A wealthy society woman's death...

Her death.

What is the method of her death? The method of the kill?

Knives emulating scalpels and medical instruments as the society woman is cut up into pieces, abdomen pinned back like a specimen with nearly all of the organs extracted and torn apart, leaving only the heart...as if the killer likes experimenting, reveling in the gore...and now the foster mother dies nearly the same way? Similar level of brutality, same sense of twisted aesthetics in the murder...

Confidential information: no one is supposed to know how the artist's wife died, much less a copycat _illogically_ deciding to show up now.

A copycat...would not have access to that information. Only the boy of seven Deidara and the killer himself saw exactly how the woman died.

Sasori, a copycat, a partner. Sasori is ruled out, notorious for the traits his victims must have. A copycat...a partner...

Shikaku tips back his head and breathes.

He really should be bitter. He should leave right now, screw the consequences. He should damn his job, his superiors, and write them all off as dead.

But he doesn't. He is Nara Shikaku.

He doesn't have the luxury to leave. Sasori's partner is out there, waiting. Nobody else knows what they're dealing with. No one else knows the consequences of leaving this case unsolved.

Steadily typing, Shikaku doesn't let his eyes leave the screen. He is focused, and the work is never ending. He has to research this thoroughly, give his partner theory a strong base of support, still write that assessment of the Yamanaka murder, figure out the...figure out...

Shikaku pauses, letting eyes drift shut.

Yoshino...is going to be left home alone again.

--

Chouza is looking as fat as ever, Shikaku thinks proudly.

Akimichi Chouza has always been the darling realist of the group. Pensive, thoughtful, the older man has enough hope for the two of them while having enough of that jaded edge for them to really get along. They balance each other's traits, and it is wonderful.

Happily, Shikaku throws himself into the conversation; he honestly wants to know about his old friend, about the darling new wife and the darling new kid. He wants to know everything from his friend's flourishing business to Chouji's first properly pronounced word.

Then things grow a little sour when Inoichi's name is brought up.

"Ah, Inoichi," Chouza can only sigh.

"Yes," Shikaku says. "Inoichi."

True, it is Shikaku who brings the missing man up in the first place, but Shikaku wants..._needs_ to get this out. He cannot concentrate on anything else but the blond man without the Akimichi's counsel. Chouza has been the vital connection between the two estranged friends. Without Chouza's gentle persistence, Shikaku would've long forgotten about Yamanaka Inoichi.

So, like any normal person, the Nara has called him up, one of many phone conferences he's held with Chouza. He should have known it would blow up in his face.

"Oho? What's this? A _Nara_ picking up a telephone cradle, punching in a string of bulky numbers, and bothering to remember telephone etiquette when you call in the middle of the night? I'm delighted. What do you need?"

The worst part is Shikaku still cannot tell whether the pleasant voice that greets him at the other end of a three a.m. telephone call is a sarcastic one or not.

And the jab towards department's technology is just harsh.

It's why he mutters the inane remark of, "We have cellphones, Chouza..."

And now they've finally met. It is their first meeting in nearly three years, and it is personal. The workload placed upon the Nara's shoulders is insane, but Chouza understands. Three years, though...the first meeting in three years and Shikaku can't pretend it's all about the pleasantries.

It's always about work.

Chouza understands. Thank god Chouza understands.

Worn, weary, Shikaku sips his tea. His friend patiently waits in silence, the cup before him untouched.

"It's about my latest case," Shikaku says finally, mouth pausing at the edge of his tea. "Inoichi. I have to be in close contact with him. His wife died, see, and the boy is being targeted."

Chouza shakes his head, sighing, "The adopted son...is that right. He's going to be eighteen soon, won't he?"

The Nara sets down his cup and does not look into his friend's eyes. "There's a chance that my theory holds true, that Sasori has had a partner all this time."

The smile at Chouza's lips is sad. "You mean you know it to be true."

"I have waited for ten years, but I've always suspected that Sasori would never return." Shikaku's eyes close briefly. "...And I was right. To think that it has come down to this. Inoichi's wife is the final proof."

"Yamanaka Chihiro? I have never met her."

"I have. A completely different woman from Yoshino, but my wife was rather fond of her. Called me all sorts of names for letting the rift grow as it did."

"Inoichi has made his own choices. He knew the risks of taking in that boy as his son."

"But is she right, Chouza?" Shikaku's gaze is dull and tired. "Am I at fault for letting this chasm grow as it did? I have not spoken to the man in nearly ten years. I do not know what to say."

"Then say nothing."

"I am the head of this investigation."

"Then turn away."

"I cannot afford to ignore him."

Chouza leans back in his seat, enormous face pensive. "Then, my friend, what will you do? Are you telling me you are going to take the coward's path and ask me to talk to him on your behalf? Are you saying that I must be the one to gather his testimony, precious evidence for this case of yours? What will you do, Shikaku?"

_What will you do_?

Shikaku doesn't know. He doesn't say a word. His eyes close; he is thinking.

Chouza knows better than to interrupt. He stops nursing his tea and takes in a large gulp, waiting for his friend to finish.

And he does. Shikaku lifts half-raised lids to meet Chouza's eyes. Something twists at his lips until his expression turns wry. "...That boy is my partner now. He has never put any stock in his name."

Chouza nods, motioning him to continue.

Shikaku drifts heavy lidded eyes shut. "Why, I wonder, does Kabuto do the things he does. I wonder—have I done him right in any way?"

"Your protégé, am I correct? I was under the assumption that he is grateful towards you."

"...Grateful?" Shikaku leans back, stretching his arms wide and yawning. He looks puzzled. "I suppose the kid's grateful. Truthfully, I can't tell a damn thing that's going through his head. The kid's too enigmatic. Maybe I've trained him too well..."

"Does he have anything to do with Inoichi's boy?"

"No. Different age groups entirely. Kabuto's already working beside me, and he's only twenty-two."

"Shikaku," Chouza says slowly, "are you thinking of letting that boy meet with Inoichi?"

"Not Inoichi. Deidara. Oh, don't look at me like that." Shikaku slumps forward to rest his cheek on top of an upturned hand. "It's going to be troublesome enough dealing with Inoichi and Ino as it is. They're still in the hospital. But Deidara? I need an extra set of hands I can trust."

"And Kabuto, this boy of yours...is he someone you can trust?"

"Ah," Shikaku says, "I think I trust the kid with my life. Maybe more, more less, but it's his control I'm worried about. He's related to a victim, too, see."

"Emotionally involved."

"Yes."

"It's not like you to pull strings," Chouza chides. "I thought you were rather above that sort of thing."

"It is precisely _because_ this is personal for him that I have him on the team. Having Kabuto is a necessity. No one else knows what they're dealing with." His voice is dry. "Of course, I'll be accused of nepotism. But that isn't the case, Chouza."

"I believe you," the other man says, sighing. "I'll always believe you, but I wonder if you're making a foolish mistake this time. You told me once that you were worried that that boy was becoming too hateful, too consumed by revenge. Has the situation eased since then, when we've last spoken?"

"How troublesome. I knew you would ask that."

"Then you should know your answer."

"You want me to say that, yes, he hasn't improved, that he's a loose canon? That he can't be trusted?"

"Shika, you know that's not—"

"Well, you're right, Chouza." Shikaku's barking laugh is harsh. "I said the truth, I trust him with my life. But I don't know if he can even be trusted to not do something _stupid_ again. I can't helphim anymore. Department's already talking about pulling him. If he weren't such a good operative, he'd already been transferred. You'd think he'd use that stupid calm to act rationally for once."

"What did he do this time?" Chouza says quietly.

"...Some bastard got to me. _You know_. I was only hospitalized for a week, but of course Kabuto had to overreact. The stupid idiot captured the guy, but ended up beating the shit out of him in the process." Shikaku groans. "So much _anger_..."

"You said he's only like that when you're hurt."

"He was worse in the beginning, but he's not much better now. Too damn mysterious, too damn enigmatic...what will happen if I die tomorrow, Chouza? Today? It can happen at anytime. I can't live forever. I'm fucking old."

Chouza stills. "What are you really trying to say, Shikaku? What aren't you telling me?"

The Nara slants him a look. "This insanity has to stop. The police has been chasing this guys for practically thirty years. I intend to _end_ this, Chouza. I intend to finish Sasori for fucking good."

"But why are you willing to be driven to such lengths?" the other man says softly. "Who are you doing this for?"

"For Inoichi, Kabuto. For all of the victims." Closing eyes. "For myself."

* * *

Shikaku and Inoichi had a falling out indirectly because of Sasori; chew on that.

Kabuto is not an 'avenger.' Oh, gods, no. His relationship with Shikaku is very casual, easygoing, but strong.

For Shikaku's character, there's a lot of Hibiki54's _The Lazy Uchiha_ Itachi in there (sardonic, lazy, calculating), along with Greek mythological Cassandra of Troy and a bit of Death Note influence, too.

Shikaku never explicitly said that he himself believed the current killer was a copycat. His strongest belief is that there's a serial killer partner involved. Meanwhile, no one knows what's happened to the real Sasori...


	5. Nuances of Play

The Yamanaka murder from the killer's perspective, and the character you've all been waiting for while another shocking one shows up.

The entire chapter was written to show the contrasting mentalities of two very different killers who were partners Once Upon a Time. The distasteful rehashed gore is for all of you. XDD

* * *

When he kills the woman, the blood feels unimaginably sweet—against his lips, tongue, and mouth! And against his skin, coating his pores with the silky life energy in crimson, precious red, he licks!

Divine. Absolutely divine.

Fangs drip with greedy, retching saliva. He laves the woman thoroughly, gleefully taking in her vacant expression, the repressed shock! He lavishes her face and neck and shoulders, reveling in the haze he is putting her through. The torture.

She is still alive, the detached part of him notes. Still alive, still in there, watching...away in her own little world. Are you in pain, my dear? Yes, yes, I think I am! Shall I pour you some more of life's wine? Yes, I think I want some, more and more!

So he obliges her, the bitch.

Is violation necessary? Perhaps it's all a tad cliché. Look, watch as the husband walks in and watch as the man is horrified to see his wifey on the floor! A dog. A bitch in heat, ass in the air, cunt throbbing and throbbing and gushing out all sorts of liquids, all pure sweetness.

No, no, no, it can't be, he argues. How can I be so cruel, so foul? Let's not degrade the meat, shall we? A shame, isn't it, to see such a pretty face mashed against the floor? There's no harm in leaving her be, just walk out that door! Walk out that door!

He's no pervert; it's not like he wants to fuck the cunt in front of the husband's eyes. Does he want that? Of course not. He is refined. He is gentile. He has good taste and does not _do_ ungentlemanly things.

So, he asks again, what should I do? Degenerate into an odd rapist and do such droll things with a petty woman? How boring. How dull!

Yes. Let's. No harm in clichés. No harm at all. The done deal, the same old, same old...are they not there to inspire the uninspired, to educate the uneducated? Am I uncreative and unimaginative enough to go with the flow, to become a sycophant to society and cheap ass Saturday morning cartoons? Should I deny this curiosity to dabble in the dabbled, to experiment with the norm?

Normalcy can't always be overrated, he thinks. It's there for a reason. It works, doesn't it? Clichés are there because they _work_.

Something in his mind urges his actions, chasing at his taunt arms as they rip away her underwear to the glory underneath. An urgency that chases his actions, feelings, thoughts.

More, he thinks. I want more. His mind is puzzling in that it is both lucid, yet deliriously engorged with the arousal of the kill.

No more role play, no more scenarios. I am not your Husband, deary. I am no so Kind.

For one moment, he does not want to be knowledgeable and creative. He wants to simply...feel. Yes, let's feel, kiddies, let's feel—!

Is this not boring? he asks himself again. Am I being uninspired?

Her hair is so ugly he croons into her skull even as he fists his hand and punches it _into inininside of her_. Thrust, punch, thrust punch. It widens, her hole. Stupid whore, accommodating him so easily! Why so easy, loose? Have you done this before, my dear?

Of course she has: she's got two kids, ain't she?

No, no, the beautiful boy is not hers. How can such a precious boy belong to her?

My mistake, his mind supplies with a solemn sigh. What a mistake I've made!

I am sorry, he thinks. I was wrong. Forgive me?

His mind is silent, curiously blank; it does not sigh.

This is boring. She is bleeding all over moist digits, and she is boring. Clichés are boring. This is such a bore.

Giving one last pump deep, caressingly _deep_ inside of her, he extracts his hand and pulls free. Squelch! What a slutty sound.

There's a barely discernible white sheen on his enclosed fist that gleams even in the dim lighting. Milky, soggy, clingy—the essence of a woman. It smells. Delightful? He picks at it, disconcerted by its silkiness. Veins of blood mingling in with the soggy whites...

Ah. Are you aroused, my dear?

But she is so still, she cannot answer. Her chest heaves with pain, face undiluted with agony.

He puckers thin, stretched lips and wonders what he can do; he is aware he has only few minutes left. What to do?

She's a greedy child wanting more. Selfish, naughty whore, just lay there and die! What a bore! Go die, he thinks. Go die. Now.

Wait. Few more minutes. What do children like to do in a span of a few minutes? Play, yes? Yes, of course! Of course they like to play! And what do children do when they play? Toys, yes...yes...toys!

There are none. He is put out, displeased. He is seeing a potential masterpiece before his eyes, _so where are the art supplies_?

Crayons, pencils, pens...you know, the usual ilk. Where are the toys?!

It takes two precious minutes to locate them. By the time he comes back to her quivering body, he is shaking horrifically. Uncontrollable jerks and nerves that dance and make him twitch, he is infuriated!

Not enough. Not nearly enough. There is simply no time! The little boy is coming home soon to mommy, and yet the masterpiece is not yet finished!

In his haste, he scatters the utensils all...over. How messy the room is, and the sight is distasteful. How best to end this now? How best to feed her innards with her children's playthings? How best to pretty her up with her Sunday's best?

Her arms are sagging at her sides. Her heads lolls back against the wall. Her legs are splayed, orifice ripe for the picking.

Open...opened wide. Greeting him with a sigh, a lust filled and coy smile that draws him in. Drawing and drawing...it greets him at the door! It is inviting him in!

Mood clearing, he cheerfully spares a few seconds to get his other tools of creativity. When he comes back, he does not regret getting them.

Fashionably old fashioned pencils, along with the new mechanical things dripping in lead. Pens of all variety to match the colors of the rainbow. Color pencils here and there, but mostly metal, shiny bits and pieces belonging to the kitchen. It is the best he can find.

Spoons. Forks. What a western family! What a delight to find such a quaint, traditional home that is so accommodating to his tastes, his décor. The forks are a delight, but there is simple poetry to the idea of _scooping_ her out with dainty spoons. Appealing, is it not? The Egyptians couldn't have done more!

So he crams them into her, all manner and shapes and sizes of tools. All of them! None of them. Perhaps this is all in his mind, or perhaps this is true reality and this is really happening. All he knows is that he is stabbing and thrusting and poking her with all assortments of materials that belong nowhere and anywhere near her.

And every weak gasp produced from such a lovely, whorish body is...a delight.

But all dreams end, even the pleasant ones. That's when the nightmare begins.

His has run out of space, out of room. No vacancy here. What do you mean no vacancy?! I say it just as I mean it—_there is no more room for you here_.

The woman is filled to the core. The sight should please him. It does not because _she is full_, and he is not done! Nowhere near satisfied! He is enraged!

He jerks away from the woman with a panicked fury that torments and twists his face. And what a terrible face! So pale, so white, so gaunt, so thin...and eyes. Terrible, terrible eyes. Slitted and frightening, those eyes that consume!

But he rather likes his eyes. They remind him of his precious pets, all curling and smooth skin scales and licking, biting mouths...Deidara is one of his pets. But Deidara is, unfortunately, wholly human.

Humans are boring, but Deidara is not boring. And yet...Deidara is human? BUT HE WANTS HIM AS HIS PET—!

Wait. Deidara can become his toy, oh, yes, he can. What do little boys and girls like to do? No. Forget the girls, just concentrate on the boys. Deidara. Focus. Blond and beautifully mangled, dangling eyes. Eye. Left, scarred, a masterpiece in its own right. A beautiful portrait of unhinged despair, pockets of tears never shedding there. What a wonderful job Sasori has done!

For pete's sake, you've only got five more minutes! But nostalgia curls at his toes and whispers against his ear. Can't you see he wants to hear? So let us reminisce, oh that wonderful partner of his. Sparring the old boy another thought, he toys with familiar, old feelings.

Mmm, he thinks, to have that beautiful man at his side once more. To cherish and behold the most beautiful of things is the most wonderful feeling in the world. Mold them, craft them, those pretty boys...until they bloom, shine.

He dearly, truly wants to kill that man. Oh, yes, he does. He wants to _wrench_ his partner's throat apart, sink in his teeth, and suckle at those vocal cords that do not speak. Sasori, Sasori, always so patient. Your work is adulation, and yet you can't spare me your never ending silence? Never speaking, just working...what a workaholic. No indulging at all, that man! So achingly severe...

Ah, if only he knows where the pretty scorpion is hiding...oh, ohh, if only that man shows his face! Where are you? Where? Where?

I want you here! I want you beside me, I want to caress and eat you. I want you to die—_die_, so why won't you die? Why won't you be killed? Why must I search for you as you torment me so? Why must I forever look towards the desert sky, searching endless seas of sand, for someone demeaning himself to hide? Why hide? Why not come out?! Why the arrogance to think that I can never replace you? I am your better! Your master! No one enslaves me, much less a soulless boy!

But why have you succeeded? I need you. I love you—_I want to kill you_. I want everything. Your body, your heart, your face, your lives...give me your all, give me your reputation! Give me the legend! _Give_!

Five minutes more. Reminiscing doesn't take any time at all.

He is pleased. Discovering the blond precious beauty in the dull, monotonous life of dazzling stars, overwhelming couplings, and street, night life galore, he's found his precious boy! He'd been delighted before he followed the boy home.

The silver wretch, with hot, pulsing lips at the neck of his toy. Touching him! _Touching his things_, he doesn't like strangers touching his things...!

Clever, clever silver wretch hides oh-so nice from his acidic, slitted eyes. Such paranoia. He spends only a minute to try and catch their lost trail, before he realizes the clever, clever silver wretch has probably hidden in the city.

A plan comes to mind, and is now in effect. He only really needs to get to the home before his blond precious boy does.

Of course he doesn't need a guide. Even before then, he knows where the homely home is! He's here now, isn't he? Tainting the walls. Fucking the wife.

The husband, he thinks—_laughing—_has already been dealt with. He is upstairs! In his bed! Having no idea of the circumstances his little wifey is in!

The daughter. Hm. Dull, very dull.

He glances at the woman with critical eyes.

So there is a resemblance. Go figure.

This woman, he tuts, has led a very dull life. A life that has been spiced up the moment he has walked inside. Such a good wife. Such a good, good mother.

Mother, oh, Mother, may I see your insides?

He raises his hand. Clasped in them are careless knives. Slash! Such resilient skin you have, giving way to my blades like butter to the knife!

Nothing in his pocket but lint and knives.

I have to stop this rhyme.

He shakes his head, long hair swinging. But he can't help it, can he? The woman just has no more room left, and such a fact can't be true...she is his canvas, and there is his paint! Blood, the rank smell of death, the enticing, heady aroma of sex. Over. And over.

She's not dead yet, but she will be.

Canvas never runs dry. Neither do they run out of space. His artistry is everlasting—that is one endearing lesson his partner has imparted to him. There must be a certain amount of finesse given to each death, a close attention to details, a fine selection of details, that must be carried out in a grand manner.

The logic? There is no space within her. He is unsatisfied? To become _satisfied_, which is a pleasantly demanding aspect of his work, he must look beyond the entrapments and piss to obscure the lines of society. He must call forth all the creativity in him, all the efforts and joy he can pull forth, and _push_!

There is no room? Well, then, _make room_. Make her body the temple that shines, make her body as his precious eye! Temples are large, grand, with ceilings way up high. Artists need elbow space to work with, and the canvas never runs dry. The answers are so very clear. What must he do to improve?

Calling upon age old textbook knowledge that swirls in his brain, he leans over and caresses her womb with knives.

And then he starts to cut.

--

The old man sighs as he sips some tea. He sets it down gently, a sight that is in strange conflict with his gruff appearance. His face is gaunt, the lower half shrouded by a cloth. His pupils are glaring, his eyes narrowed. Haunched over in his seat, the board is laid out before him. He is participating in a game of shougi, and his opponent is a quiet one.

This pleases the old man for he hates idle chatter. He is not a man to cross, and often times the idiots of the town cannot offer him the slightest of challenges. He is bored, but this new challenger has urged him to take a newfound interest in a game he has already mastered long ago.

He lifts an arm and makes a play, and yet victory has only now approached his sight; they have been playing for four and a half hours straight. Though hungry, he soothes his stomach with tea. He is so engrossed with this game, this fantastical opponent he has found, that he does not care for petty earthly distractions. He can tell his opponent feels the same way. Not ever has he ever been approached by a player with such intense focus as this stranger!

He may be world weary, but he is quite intelligent. Like his opponent, he lets his reticence show. They let their shougi tactics speak for themselves.

The old man's way shows clearly through his pieces. Defensive, but deceptive in play, he lies in wait. He focuses on misleading opponents, drawing them into the world of traps and tricks, luring unwary men into their demises. He delights in unexpected surprises and crushing any arrogant fool's pieces completely. His brutal, callous intent shows in every one of his careful plays.

In real life, he is tired and old, but on the shougi board his actions speak of incredible knowledge, calculative thinking, and a staunch, pragmatic approach to his strategies.

No words are exchanged between the two. The old man is delighted that he has finally found an opponent who can appreciate his mastery of the game. It is why he faces this opponent with his complete attention, never allowing himself to stray into thoughts that would make him underestimate the much younger man.

He refuses to insult such a magnificent player by fighting him with less than his all. Holding back even a shred of his skill is the highest insult that can be paid in this moment in time.

The stranger, this silent opponent of his, can surely appreciate the gesture.

And he does. The stranger's eyes widen until that deceptively youthful face curves softly with his smile. The smile he gives the old man is a content, languid one, a gentle gesture of defeat. He leans in close, finger tapping the board. "You have bested me, Hiruko," the man says, and his words are said in dulcet tones. "I thank you for this game."

Soft spoken, polite, and completely respecting of his elder's skills. Yet, there is something in the stranger's face that speaks of coying smugness.

Hiruko, as the old man is indeed called, raises brows high. "Your shougi will always be appreciated here, boy. As you can see, though, I have won." He says this without boast, only satisfaction, and yet he can't help but furrow those brows when the stranger only chuckles.

"My dear opponent," the redheaded man says, face gleaming with triumph, "please check your pieces once more."

Hiruko obliges him, curiosity spurring him on as he rakes the board with shrewd eyes. They widen. His mouth breaks into a pleased gasp. He laughs! Hoarse, hacking laughs...as if he has never laughed before!

The redheaded man doesn't stop smiling. His content expression has become genuine and pleased. He taps the board again. "Well? Will you forfeit, my dear opponent? Or shall I overtake your king?"

The old man is still laughing, but now he is waving his younger opponent away. "Forget it, boy! I can make no more moves after such a trap. Turning my own strength into my greatest weakness...you have forced me into an unprecedented defeat."

"I am glad." The corners of the stranger's eyes crinkle. "I have not had such difficulty in the longest of times."

For the first time in many frustrated years, Hiruko smiles back.

--

The night Hiruko dies, he does so with sobering dignity, sitting in his home quietly. His tea is laid out beside him, as it always is. Occasionally, he takes calm sips, but his form is taunt, aging muscles tense.

He looks very much like a belligerent old general, ready for any battle. It is as if he knows he is about to die.

A shougi board is placed before him, its heavy set wooden pieces carefully positioned. At seemingly random times, he takes a moment to move a piece. He is playing both sides, playing a match against himself. What is the point of this? some may ask, but Hiruko is studying the board with much more intensity than he should. It begs questioning.

Had anyone been knowledgeable enough about his activities earlier—or, rather, his match this afternoon—they would have realized that the old man is replicating his near five hour match with the stranger. If that isn't incredulous enough, he is doing so with perfectly accurate memory.

An incredibly daunting task, recalling a five hour match, but this is no ordinary match. It is a match started and completed with only thirty-seven moves combined. It has taken five hours to deliberate and complete such an extraordinary game, with more cunning and wits involved than just the strategies being played out on the board below.

That is what Hiruko is doing now. It is not that he has photographic memory or near perfect intelligence. He is simply deciphering the undertones of the undertones of the match he has played with the redhead youth of this afternoon, a stranger who has only recently arrived in town.

He is deciphering the stranger's intent. As the replaying of the duplicate match continues on, his face grows more and more wary. His tea is utterly forgotten, consumed as he is in decoding the subtleties that this dangerous stranger has weaved into his play.

It is both a fascinating yet horrifying process.

He is too impatient with the world and its ways to bother to seek companionship. Human interaction stops strictly at the marketplace. Nothing more is needed. He hates waiting for something that will never come, but he despises making others wait even more. What a hypocrite he would be if he indulges in the same habits as the world around him!

When one is as consumed by the game of shougi as he is, a man learns to judge another's character by the strategies he plays.

You cannot lie on the board. The pieces cannot hold their owner's deceit, and that is why mind games between pros are particularly common and worthy. To hide the player's true nature, his intentions, to obfuscate anything that would give an enormous advantage away...

He is, he suddenly realizes, afraid.

In the face of this unexpected development, the old man can only laugh. Amused. He is very amused.

His fear slides into apathy; he knows now that he is going to die.

It is why he is not at all surprised to hear padded footsteps approach him from behind. They stop just short of his chair, and Hiruko does not need to turn around to know who is there, standing behind him.

He's lived too long anyway. And he so hates to make others wait.

Might as well converse with his killer. A morbid decision, but his humor is dark enough to accept this choice. "Please," he says, motioning towards the empty seat opposite of him. "Sit. I insist."

He feels, rather than sees, his killer's nod. The redheaded stranger from before moves around to take his place in the waiting chair. His manner is delicate and refined as always, but there is now a taunt, deadly edge to it. A taunt, but Hiruko is not intimidated.

He idly wonders why a famed murderer has decided to grace his door. The old man poises this question aloud.

He is rewarded with Sasori's dulcet laugh.

The killer leans forward ever slightly. His tones are musing, mockingly thoughtful. "Why is it," he says, "that I am not surprised to find my old rival here, waiting for me?"

Hiruko tilts his head in a nod. "I am flattered to be called as such. I was not aware that you had considered me such a threat? But I suppose my intellect is a curse in this case."

"You are correct."

"So I am alive still, why?"

"Answers," is the arch, airy response. "I am in need of answers as to recent events in Konoha."

"Hm," Hiruko says noncommittally, clearing the board. "I am retired, Akasuna no Sasori. You will get no answers out of me."

"And yet your loyalty belongs to no one but yourself. You are a police captain no more. This does not constitute as a betrayal. We are not in Konoha."

"No, we are not. We are near Suna, your mother's homeland."

"How knowledgeable you are." Idle praise.

"Hmm." The old man finishes setting up the new pieces. "I've done enough research on you to know your origins. How many long hours have I been consumed with the thought of capturing you? Sadly, this poor substitute of yours in Konoha fails utterly to hold my attention."

Sasori smirks, the first facial gesture he gives that is not disarming or charming in the least. It is stark to his intentions and utterly cruel. "...I have my reasons for letting the man play."

Hiruko heaves a sigh, already bored with the conversation. "Let us proceed with the new game. Do you agree?"

Sasori has finished setting up his side of the board. He shrugs lightly in compliance. "I am black. I will move first. In our previous game, I was white. Did you duplicate our game in my perspective?"

"Yes. It didn't work by the way."

"Really..."

"You are masterful at this," Hiruko says, the praise unhesitating.

"I know." They both know they are not talking about shougi. "Your reluctance to speak...are you that ignorant of the workings of your former partner?"

"Of course not," he says immediately. "However, people change. My apprentice has had years worth of experience away from my command. I can claim no knowledge of his tactics now."

Sasori's smirk only widens. He smoothly moves a pawn.

Hiruko counters the move by copying it.

A few more moves, and the black rook is finally captured and put to the side. This game, in contrast with the afternoon one, is rapid. If this careless pace keeps up, he knows they will finish in less than a hour. Shougi games typically last one to two hours. Their earlier one lasted five.

Right now, each is taking less than a minute to decide each move. Pros take three. Hiruko's brows raise high, again impressed with his opponent's prowess, but he is not surprised.

For forty-nine moves, they do not speak.

"Contrary to belief," the old man is compelled to finally add, moving a bishop, "I voluntarily retired that day seventeen years ago. When I was first in charge of your case, my methods were controversial, yes, but not so much to garner such animosity. I am from Suna, after all. What did they expect? I was not about to let myself be humiliated from a dismissal. Konoha no longer welcomed me, but I was fine leaving it. My greatest achievement comes in the form of a boy, anyway. It is enough to know that they cannot live without him."

"He does you proud," Sasori notes, languidly capturing a white rook. "Even now, in ignominy, you are well up to date with the happenings in Konoha. What will you do when you find out he is dead?"

Hiruko chokes a laugh, caught by the absurdity of the statement. "I will be dead by morning! There is no use in asking me such an irrelevant question."

"I have decided to watch these events play out. These years have been such a bore to me, and nothing has challenged me to greater heights. It is to my regret that I must kill you. You are simply too intelligent. It has taken me a decade to locate you. Will you answer my questions before you are dead?"

"I will now," Hiruko says, voice satisfied, "because you have proven to be my greatest opponent."

"You are not an artist by any stretch."

"Feh," he says. "My death will just be credited to that partner of yours."

Sasori gazes at him calmly. "You know of my partner?"

"Who doesn't? Then again, all of Konoha is in a panic. Screaming about copycat this, copycat that. The stupider ones think you're actually back. The idiots! Be wary of my boy. He has a tendency towards prophetic theories. They are usually right."

"I have no intention of returning to Konoha. I never had." Sasori briefly closes his eyes. He wordlessly moves a pawn. "My partner has aims I am all too aware of. He is foolish if he believes he can attain them. If he becomes too much, I will simply eradicate him."

"Yes." Hiruko shrugs. "I suppose you will."

"You are being very impersonal for talking to your killer."

"I am in admiration of you. So skillful a player can't obviously be insane enough to perform this cohesively. Your murders were artworks themselves. I miss those days. Times are blindingly boring now."

Sasori tilts his head. "Curious."

"I have lived too long," Hiruko says, decisively cornering a valuable piece. "Do what you will with me."

"...Curious."

"Are you surprised by my attitude?"

"Your shougi tells me you are anxious, and yet your manner is calm. What are you so impatient for?"

"That boy," Hiruko says, "will have surpassed me by now. I will die here. It is inevitable. I will have been granted a properly gruesome death by the morning. That boy will not see it that way. He will avenge me, my ultimate successor, even when he curses my name. With my death, he will prove his worth."

Sasori's expression is indifferent, but his eyes fairly gleam. "...Is your partner worthy? Will he best mine? Will your last play be the greatest one you've ever played?"

"My last play...recognizing my death as a potential catalyst or shaping the boy into what he is today? Yes, I believe him worthy. Either way, he will stop at nothing to capture your partner. And when he makes that last pawn of yours dead, he will come after the king." Hiruko looks up, a savage grin twisting his face. "Nara Shikaku will succeed where I have failed; he will have captured you. This game will finally come to a close. I have been waiting for this for years..."

Sasori watches intently as Hiruko sets down his thirty-seventh play—a white pawn placed directly in line of his black king, protected from being captured by the king itself by a hidden white bishop, tucked eight paces away.

Checkmate.

* * *

Sasori did not kill Inoichi's wife, but it should be obvious who the real psychopath killer is. Sasori shouldn't come off as insane, being in full control of himself, but it should be assumed he has spent the last ten years lying low...doing what, I wonder? And what is his partner's motive and goal? Do you believe Shikaku, who thinks Sasori is the brainwashed apprentice of some psycho killer? Who is really pulling the strings around here?

Hiruko was a very powerful captain who took Shikaku under his wings. This shrewd bastard saw to it that he cultivated the Nara prodigy's talent, but Hiruko had none of the ethics or morals that Shikaku has. There is a reason Hiruko is so willing to die. Is it strange to split Hiruko/Sasori into two separate characters? I giggle at the image of them playing shougi together...


	6. Police Interlude III

Hell yes I'm back. This chapter starts a series of events in motion that is very important while reintroducing someone who's always been around but never really there.

I'm also excited because I finally was able to watch Asuma's death for myself, never mind how ridiculously slow the plot through Shippuuden episodes is. Yes, character death is very sad, but I got to experience canon Hidan for myself! Thank you, fansubs!

(Consequently, I can no longer read KakuzuHidan goodness. Their real canon apathy ruins the bloody masochism/sadism yaoi aspects of their fandom relationship I so love...doesn't mean I can't try.)

Dang. I missed Halloween.

* * *

Kabuto sighs, shutting the door behind him. Crossing the room without a glance at its occupant, he busies himself with a small notebook, flipping through its pages.

"Oh. It's you." The blond woman scoffs, folding her arms. "Got more questions for me, Yakushi? Gonna interrogate me about my little brother again?"

"I am unable to reach Deidara at this moment," he says mildly. "Be glad that it's not me at the head of this operation."

"Operation. Honestly, listen to yourself. Has all this rank crap gone to your head or something? You don't boss me around!"

The bespectacled man rolls his eyes, not even bothering to hide the undignified action. Voice still mild, he says, "Yamanaka-san, as I recall I'm your senpai. Why don't you treat me as such?"

No amount of injuries could have stopped her from doubling over, laughing, but the sound is wholeheartedly bitter. "You _were_ my senpai, you ass. Now, fuck off. I don't want to see your face right before I'm discharged."

"As old classmates and dear friends," Kabuto says with a tilt of his head, "I'm sure we can come to some degree of understanding."

Ino dearly wants to slap the smirk right off his face. Her frown grows pronounced, though her fists have loosened. More weary than anything else, she answers him. "Go away, Yakushi. My dad's in the ER, and you creeps keep saying my brother's gone psycho. Why should I answer any questions for you?"

"Where were you at the time of the attack?" he says, face bland and impassive.

"You already know that."

"At what time did you enter the master bedroom and find your father?"

She lets loose a breath. "Is there a point to any of this?"

"When will you tell us what the killer looks—"

She slams a fist against the metal railing of her bed, snarling. "Look! I already answered these questions a thousand times! Fuck _off_, Yakushi."

"So...you don't know what the killer look like."

"I never said that!"

Kabuto's eyes fairly gleam. He smiles, eyes crinkling. "Ah," he says, "then I don't suppose you'll let me interrogate the victim?"

"The victim...?" Ino's already pale skin whitens. "The victim is my dead mother!"

"As the only available family member and a consenting adult, I'm obligated to ask you if I may...talk to Deidara personally." Kabuto's mouth is still in a lilting smile, perfectly disarming. "But I don't suppose it's necessary in this case?"

"Don't you dare. I gave no such permission! Don't you go near my brother...!"

But Kabuto has already strode to the door. Hand pausing at the handle, he tosses a laconic look over his shoulders; Ino trembles in impotent fury. "I'm sorry, Yamanaka-san, but this is only a courtesy call, a polite necessity. I intend to get the answers out of..._someone_ by the end of the day."

His smile drops as he turns his back fully to her. "Do you understand what Deidara exactly is? He is not someone you can casually claim as your brother or an adopted son. He is the product of a monstrous case. He is the result of a tainted tragedy. You may not know this, but the moment your parents becomes indisposed, the boy falls into our custody."

"How," she says, ducking her head and panting, "can you stand there and _tell me _all of this? Are you heartless? Does this bring you some sick sadistic joy, Yakushi?"

Kabuto shrugs. "Do you want me to apologize? This is the consequence of becoming attached to the product of a failed case. Frankly, I had hopes your family would be able to keep the boy on a tight leash. It didn't work, obviously."

Something snaps in her.

"_Deidara_," she hisses, nearly flinging herself off the bed and screaming, "is _not_ an object. He's only seventeen! He is my brother! He's normal...a good boy. A good boy! He's not a monster, so stop treating him as a disease, He's not—! He doesn't—he doesn't need..." Her words break off into a sob.

"Tch." Kabuto, unconsciously emulating his mentor, tips back his head and sighs. "Well, in any case, I have to show some work for my efforts. Can't go report empty handed, after all."

Face tear stained and incredulous, Ino stares at his back. "You...you are..." She is gaping, speechless, voice stained with disbelief, "_Monster_. You're a monster. You—you don't have any compassion! Wh...why are you...?"

"Monster?" he cuts in, amusement clear. "Me?"

She swallows.

He turns just slightly, enough so that his blank-faced profile meets her eyes. Kabuto's appearing smile is incredibly cold. "I don't know what you mean, Yamanaka-san. I'm just a simple policeman trying to deal out simple justice."

He swings open the door completely, but Yamanaka Ino has fallen utterly silent.

--

Shikaku's sigh is incredibly irate. "Did you have to break her in the process, Yakushi?"

They are outside hospital walls, and dusk has fallen. Loitering near the front entrance, the two fall into their usual interaction, though Shikaku is annoyed.

Kabuto meets his eyes calmly. "I told her the truth. She refused to cooperate."

Shikaku runs a heavy hand through his hair, brows pinched and creased with his exhaustion. "Yeah, well, once I finally got the details out of the girl, I had to save my notes from being destroyed by the waterworks. Do you know how hard she was crying after you left? I could barely hear her testimony."

"Yes, I'm aware," Kabuto says, copying his mentor's airy tone perfectly. "I was outside her door, after all."

"Che." Shikaku raises a hand to scratch at his head. "You need to stop being so fucking _intense_ all the time, kid. Lay off about Sasori, won't you? The family doesn't need to hear it."

"Nothing else matters as long as Sasori is dead."

"Still going on about that?" Shikaku says, flicking open the top of a pack. Whatever temper Kabuto has managed to arouse is no longer there; Shikaku looks as detached as ever. Kabuto envies him for it, that easygoing grace.

Or is it arrogance?

So fucking carefree when he knows Shikaku is anything but. So deceptive in manner and tone.

"I can see why the ones high up want me off this case," he says slowly. "I could barely control myself in there. I really couldn't. Are you worried about me, Nara? Do you think I'll become a basket case when this is all over like everyone else believes? Or do you think I'll go bat shit crazy on you all?"

"A hospital," Shikaku says mildly, "is not the right place for this conversation."

"Answer me, Nara. I'm so fucking tired of all the looks they give me!"

The Nara frowns, biting down on his unlit cigarette. It is the first frown he gives this entire time, and the sight of it makes Kabuto feel strange, almost empty. Ashamed. "Yakushi," Shikaku says, letting hands fall into pockets, "do you honestly give a damn about what they think or say? When I asked if you were capable of the job, you answered, unhesitant. Are you now going back on your words? Have you _overestimated_ yourself, Yakushi?"

It isn't the usual frown of annoyance or thinly veiled apathy.

Kabuto's mouth is completely dry. The one thing his mentor can't stand is incompetence—the failure to recognize the weaknesses in oneself, the failure of foolish overconfidence, the failure of...

Yes, he thinks. I am ashamed.

Not wanting to aggravate him any further, Kabuto only grits his teeth and bears the silence.

"Don't worry. The most terrifying way you act is when you smile, nod your head, and give me polite shit in your speech." Shikaku shakes his head, looking weary. "With me, you're honest at least."

"I...don't doubt my resolve. I need to finish this case, to see through it to its end. I need _closure_, sir," Kabuto says.

"And you'll get it. All these years you've worked furiously for this one moment, haven't you? Do you believe me when I say Sasori may not have shown up at all and it's an alleged partner? Or do you think it's a copycat, like the rest?"

The younger man immediately shakes his head. "I don't know what to believe, sir, I only know that this man must be taken down. Sasori or not...the bastard's still using the same methods. This killer will suffice...for now."

Shikaku raises his brows. "Oh?"

"...Sir, you don't have to give me that look."

"No, no. I'm surprised, that's all. You surprise me, Yakushi."

The answering snort renders all credibility in Shikaku's words null.

"Really," Shikaku stresses, a hand gesturing absently, "I am surprised. Are you telling me you're going to give up this revenge scheme of yours?"

Kabuto's expression is flat. "I'm won't lie, sir. I cannot promise you that if I see Sasori before my eyes, I won't do something incredibly stupid. For now, I'll settle for what I've got."

"Ah," Shikaku says, blinking, "at least you're not stupid enough to try and convince me otherwise. I don't care what anybody else says, you're staying on this case."

"I won't ask why."

"Good. I wouldn't have answered anyway." A slight tilt of the head. "You seem unusually resigned. Talk."

"I'm tired, Nara." Kabuto slumps against the wall, bringing a hand to rub the bridge of his nose. His eyes are closed. "I'm sick of dealing with this fuckcase family already."

Shikaku pivots to lean back against the wall, too. A flame appears in his hand and he lights his cigarette, blatantly ignoring hospital protocols. With every breath he takes, the Nara looks more pensive, more thoughtful. The stick still hangs in the corner of his mouth, and his frown has eased.

He smiles a little as he says the next words. "It's the boy isn't it? That's why you're trudging your feet and being a prissy reluctant bastard."

"I haven't the pleasure of meeting Deidara yet," Kabuto says, brushing aside bangs coolly.

"Of course not," Shikaku says, face suddenly earnest. "Deidara is still locked up all nice and tight. A very _delicate_ person like him can't possibly be questioned at the moment. Oh, no, Yakushi, I'm just a foul, uncouth old man who doesn't have the sensibilities to treat a patient right."

"...Have the nurses turned you away again?"

Shikaku's expression falls back into apathy. "Meh, troublesome. Can't flirt with them. Can't get past them. They only have the utmost pity for the newest victim in their hands. I remember in my day when I was always surrounded by pretty things wanting to feel me up..."

Kabuto's snort says it all.

"But it's fine, I guess. The hospital's pretty strict about keeping the police out of their business. Guess we have to wait like the rest."

"He's not injured. Can't the boy be kept at the station? "

Shikaku shrugs. "It's out of our hands. Visiting hours is long over, but how the hell do you think we were able to get away with getting an audience with the Yamanaka girl? There's only so much I can do in the persuasion department." A pause. "Has it ever occurred to you that I don't like pulling my weight around?"

Flicking ash at the ground, he lets arms move and stretch out wide. The foreign made stick dangles in his mouth. He takes a breath, lacing fingers at the nape of his neck. "I'm lazy, sure. Hell, I get told off about it enough. Used to be this naïve thing, you know? Greenhorn and sincere and rot. Not so much now. Had to relax in order not to make my head blow. When did inclination and habit become such a troublesome thing? I thought I was set. Be lazy. Get them all riled off, piss of the rest. But now? Now, I find I can't even look up at the damn sky anymore..."

"You're rambling."

"I wasn't always like this," Shikaku says, abrupt.

Kabuto slowly turns. He pushes himself off the wall to face the Nara.

Shikaku's smile is vaguely bitter. "This whole Sasori thing. You're not the only one affected. Just as I can't watch clouds these days, this person, this _persona,_ I've forged is starting to crack. I wonder, how can a lazy person catch a monster? To what lengths must I go in order to catch a man like him? But I already know. I'm a genius. I can't afford not to know. I know. What I have to do, what I might have to become..."

"Nara...?"

"Don't worry, Yakushi. I'm tired, too."

--

"Distressed, screaming, hysterical..."

"Shut up."

"With a notable absence of vehemence. Whatever happened to make that harpy voice go?"

Ino wrings her hands, the sheet crumpling in between. "Why are you back here?"

"You already know, don't you?"

Blanching, she looks away. "Know what? What do I know? Why are you here?"

His smile is pitiless against her evasion. "You know what I want. I hear you saw Deidara. I'm wondering if you can tell me why...after all, not even the police are allowed in. I am very interested to know your answer."

She shakes her head, lank tresses swinging.

"Yamanaka-san..."

"Go to hell, Yakushi."

"You're being rather difficult," he sighs. He shifts his glasses, and they glint in the light. "What if I were to tell you that I did finally meet Deidara-kun?"

"Liar." Her already white face pales. "You're lying. Police aren't allowed—"

"You assume I'm acting in the capacity of a police officer. I'm not." Smiling, he leaned forward in his seat. "Please understand the position you're putting me in, Yamanaka-san. You're forcing me to do a very difficult thing."

"Who are you?" she whispers, stricken. "Why are you doing this?"

Kabuto only tilts his head back, and smiles. "I am no one, Yamanaka-san. I am only a humble officer doing his duty."

"If...if I talk, will you go away?" The woman is visibly distressed. She bites down on her bottom lip to control her expression, but her anxious hands give her away. Whether wringing the sheets or fluttering in the air...

Kabuto's eyes are inscrutable. He is not smiling anymore. "Tell me," he breathes, leaning close.

"Deidara...Deidara is not...well." Tension wracks her frame into a stiff form. Her hands open and close slowly, softly, now. "He—my brother...I didn't see her, but I'm told he has."

The mutilated and desecrated woman currently still being excavated down at the morgue. They still haven't extracted all foreign objects from her body, not because of their obstruction to the autopsy but because men and women with both strong and weak constitutions has retched at the sight of the dead mother and wishes to preserve her dignity.

A flicker of the eyes towards Ino's face dispels unsightly memories. Kabuto does not blink—he doesn't want to. He sees the faintest beginnings of a tremble in the woman's thin frame—gaunt, unshapely...has she been losing weight? Fast, rapidly. The nurses says she doesn't eat well...

It is undeniable, however, that this woman is clearly that dead mother's child.

And yet despite her horror she still does not understand. With clinical, terse tones, she's been told of the numerous heinous wounds dealt to her mother's body. Fiercely determined, hysterically angry, she's demanded to be told.

Now look at her. Weak and frail, shivering in her bed. Cowering at the sight of himself questioning her. She hasn't seen the body. She doesn't have the image of a corpse latching itself inside of her head. She doesn't understand the full extent of horror, realize its implications.

That some godless being skulks out there, watching—_waiting_—for vulnerability.

No. No, Yamanaka Ino has not seen the body at all. Not like her brother has.

Not like Kabuto has.

"...Why are you still here? Why won't you let me go?"

It is taken only a moment to process all of this information; Kabuto's thoughts have not be disrupted by her intruding, plaintive words. He has already dismissed her in his mind. "You'll be discharged."

"Yes, but that doesn't mean anything. Our livelihood is uprooted. We can't even go home. Even if we did, the police would be waiting for us. Even if we moved, they'd still know where we'd be, where we'd live, and they'd feel free to come question us whenever they please."

Kabuto's frown is slight, his tone calm. His brows are coolly raised. "I'm sure you are mistaken. Deidara is to be placed under our jurisdiction."

Her shoulders sag, the first movement in her stiffened form. Like tethered strings cut from above, she sags. Her head is bowed, dropped, and tresses hides her eyes. "...Is that what you're going to do?"

He stands smoothly. "I believe we are finished here."

Description slithers into her words, making her body jerk up and fling up high her head. "What more can you people do to us? What more can we offer you...?!"

"Goodbye, Yamanka-san."

She opens her mouth to—to yell, scream, _cry!_ But there's no point. Her words die on her lips.

"Goodbye," the woman whispers finally.

--

She lays back onto her cushioned bed and rests her eyes. Her head swims, a miasma of hurt _all over_. But she blocks it out. Just like she always does, she affects nonchalance. She has to. Even with people swarming around her, even with their questions _barging barging in_ she has to be blasé.

She has to. She has to. Reduced to a blithering idiot, who is there to see her shame? No one but herself.

Her poor, pitiful self.

And that detective...

That ridiculous pineapple cut, and those cigarettes! Inside hospital grounds! Disheveled clothes more suited towards a bum or an overworked salaryman or _a man just from sex_. Yet, what is he? What is that man? The one with such shrewd eyes who asks the most impertinent of questions...!

Nothing like Yakushi. At least with Yakushi, she knows where she stands. She can snip back and be wholeheartedly bitter—she knows what to expect. A smirk, a dark look. Acidic derision underneath a smooth, opaque veneer of politeness. But with that detective...?

Who is he? A Nara. Not just any Nara but Shikaku. A family friend. No longer family, no longer friend.

_Are you satisfied_? that man has asked earlier that day.

_Yakushi has just left_—moments, months, days, weeks_ ago_? Who knows. What matters now is that her past keeps grinding in jagged shards into this already horrible day. Yakushi has left, but in comes his superior.

She is already reeling from the reappearance of a cocky, old classmate. What more does this duly noted police visit entails? _A bit more of the scrapped past in the flesh_.

"Are you satisfied?" that man says again.

She stares blankly at him.

He tips back his head and falls into a comfortable lean against the wall. "Inoichi's kid. Are you satisfied?"

And like that her silence snaps. But not in the screaming spree she has had with Yakushi before—this is how the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper.

So she whimpers. She clutches her head, bowing it. She mumbles something incoherent. Her eyes are dazed.

That man takes a moment of pause, of heavy, pregnant pause, to stare at her. He cocks his head, curious. As if she were an interesting bird. Flamboyant, in a cage. Golden gilded cage this is, the walls are white and they may as well be padded. She may as well not be resting under the sterile whites of florescent lights or have soft blankets covering her form—she may as well be dead. She maybe as well be forever away from here, reality because surely, _surely_, this is not true?

Her mother's dead. Papa's in the hospital as well. And little Deidei...?

"No. No, I'm not satisfied," she chokes. Her throat is seized—anguish, hurt, she cannot breathe. She is suddenly gasping for breath, for something that isn't quite there—_she cannot breathe_.

He is at her side. When has he taken those steps? He is suddenly bringing hands near and resting them on her own. They grasp hers, bringing them slowly away from her aching head—she has been clutching it before, with all her strength, and her temples hurt.

Those eyes, boring into her own. She can't escape from their scrutiny. He frowns.

"The last thing you said to me was that you would crow the day you'd see me fall."

"You haven't fallen yet," she says. She hangs her head and her body sags with the move. A marionette not yet cut from her strings.

That man neatly seats himself in the hardback chair near her. She notices for the first time he has a manila folder in hand. He taps it against the side of a knee of a leg crossed over the other. Still, he does not stop staring. "You're not satisfied. Do you think I'm detached from the case I'm involved in now?"

They speak so candidly to each other. Yet the last time she's seen him, the Nara was a giant in her mind's eye, a haggard, enormous figure from the faulty and deceptive memories of her childhood. He is not so big now. Nor is she so little.

She knows sharp words. "You rejected us, you rejected my _father_. What justification do you have now to claim you even care? Somewhere inside of you, _somehow, _you're thinking it's obligatory to meet the family face-to-face, but what else is Yakushi there for?" Although it is an accusation, she says it quite mild. She is tired. She is looking away, lank bangs hanging in front of her eyes.

Yakushi has taken her off guard. Nara Shikaku has beaten her down.

"I have no excuse. You're not an obligation either." The Nara absently flicks open a lighter. She barely notes how he fiddles with it, popping it open and shut, letting fire hiss and die—meaningless, uncharacteristic motions on a self-disciplined man.

Something grows in her. Anger, maybe. Incredulity. "Are you _for real_? What are you here for? You're about a decade too late. You're not here to make nice. You're here to interrogate me."

His erratic, flicking openings of his lighter's lid suddenly cease. "What makes you so sure?"

"Yakushi."

"Tactless and ignorant of our history."

"Yes. History. Please leave."

And he says something that makes her freeze.

"...What?" she says. A quivering, disbelieving smile stretches across her face, cracked. Her dull turned shell shocked gaze lifts from the bed covers and onto his face—_she breathes_. "What...did you just say?"

He says nothing. He only closes his eyes, refusing to repeat his words.

"Papa won't...wake up?"

He peers at her. Again, that curious look of detachment. _That man claims otherwise_. She is not an obligation, he says!

And then she blinks. Her smile widens, but it is a frenzied, outstretched smile of happy disbelief, denial. She is not hearing any of this. No, of course not. This is all a nightmare—just a bad dream, a bad joke. In truth that man is faraway from here, not a horrific carrier of bad news, this joke. In truth she is in her bed, at home, and everything's the same, absolutely the epitome of normalacy and everything a picket white fenced home on the outskirts of the intercity should be.

She is in her bed and she has just awoken from this dream. She pants out a breath—of relief?—none of it is real! It has never even happened, only in the dark, dank corners of her twisted mind! There is no detective, no bad men near, no ancients relics from the past.

That man is an ancient relic from the past. Begone! Vanish!

And still she does not cry. She only smiles, inanely, at some transitive image only she can see on the walls around, the ceiling above. Only she.

Her words come out breathy, the half-gasp voice of childish wonder and girlish excitement. "Oh, but Papa is only sleeping. Yes, he is."

She grins at something only she can see.

She knows it is beyond her tactile capacity, but she swears she can feel him _see_. What does he see? She is only indulging in a little fantasy.

"Inoichi is in a coma."

Her smile falters. Eyes blink, momentarily confused. Dazed? "Maybe."

"Not maybe."

"Definitely?" she says in her too small, girlish voice of frightened proportions.

Shikaku doesn't say a word. He leans in close and stretches a hand to tilt her chin down gently, too gently, too intimately. He has no right, but she doesn't recognize this. She is only blinking frantically away dusty tears.

There is something in the air. She is not crying.

"Cry, Ino," he says quietly. "It's the one thing you haven't done so far."

* * *

No Deidara today. Sorry for my piss poor fic planning skills. The outline in my head is a vague mirage I must make my characters work towards in ridiculously roundabout ways. I hope you're having fun anyways. Always keep me in the know of your thoughts about Shikaku because...he's pivotal. Obviously. And it's no good if nobody likes him, right? He's a real sweetie towards the end, though there are lots of unsaid things.

Update was belated because the last chapter screwed me over, forcing me to second guess my own fic's direction. Not a very pleasant feeling for a fragile, sensitive author, oh no.

So. Ino? Anyone?


	7. Terror, Terror, Stop?

A new, updated summary to incorporate Shikaku's importance. A new character is introduced and Deidara returns.

This marks the end of the Police Interlude Arc. The fic can finally begin.

* * *

They don't understand. He's not crazy. He's not. There are no voices in his head, no otherworldly being commanding him to do the things he does. He just _acts_. It is all his own will. Nothing controls him, will _never_ control him. That's just who he is, a resistor. A reactor. You bite him, he bites you. It's simple, common cause and effect. Like science. Like logic.

Why don't they understand? He's not out to kill anyone. He wasn't really going to hurt that pretty nurse—he just hates pills. Needles, syringes—can't they see he can't stand medication? Stop feeding! Please. Pretty please? He just wants to leave, go home—home? Home? Where is home?

He's not injured. He's not supposed to be here. Where is here? Not padded white walls. Simple, sterile white. Hospital. All right, he's in a hospital room. Admitted, but not committed...

He will never be committed. He will never subject himself to their loony bins, their padded whitewashed walls. Knobless doors, straps, IV drips, and days in and days out of nothing to think, feel, act but it's all in your head, yes, _all in your head_.

He can't stand it! He doesn't want to think of it.

Dead. All of them. Mama and Papa and...and...

The rest don't matter, just focus on the past!

Mama...Mama, don't die. Please don't die.

I'm sorry, dear child, but I'm already dead, you see?

He remembers vividly the events of a decade ago. He can see them, the pretty swirls of his papa's face, the memories. No, not papa, never 'papa.' Father. Just...Father. Father, who painted beautiful things. Father, who painted a stranger's face...

Stranger's face...

Glorious hair of fire's breed. Silk, sheen of white flesh.

In his madness, he remembers.

As a child, delirious with the agony of a rutted eye, he'd forgotten much of them. Memories. Like delicate, crinkling slits of glass, they crumbled into dust at his feet. Forgotten—but not dusted. Not swept under the rug, only merely, temporarily forgotten.

In his madness, he remembers. Some, most, all? Does it even matter so long as he sees the face of the stranger?

Because he refuses to communicate with them, only using the most basest of eye gestures, lidless—_for he never blinks or closes his eyes—_and wholly unresponsive. He stares, he does. He stares a lot. All day, all night, he doesn't respond to the doctors' questions. He looks away from the nurses and hisses at her clothes.

Pearlwrinkle blue. Perwrinkle? Periwinkle. Blue. A very nice shade of blue.

He hates her. He hates all of them. Their uniforms—

_...perwinkle dress remains around her womb, and the clothes swathe her hips in a mockery of purity as the cloth around there is absent of..._

Of...what?

He hates her, he loves her. The nurse? The dress? The woman in his dreams?

_And the little boy does not want to see what is under there..._

One day, he wants to find out. One day, he will see.

For now, though, he waits. They think him unstable. They don't like leaving him in a room unattended—or alone without cameras? Security measures absolutely worthless in the face of his unblinking eyes. Really.

He has nothing to hide. Nothing at all. In fact, he challenges them to see and discover what is waiting for them in the abyss. He _wants_ them to find out. The abyss is him, _in him_, a gaping black hole. He thinks he knows one memory one day, but then it fades with the next. He realizes his memory is faulty and unreliable, but he likes conferring to experience's sake in matters dealing with the here and now. He doesn't care that it's all so skewed and that he cannot remember anybody's faces clearly. He doesn't care. He just acts. He just _knows_.

Meds. They have him on meds. Right. Of course.

But he is sure to remember the stranger's face if nothing else. Something about his father's image is cracked and shady, unhinged. Broken mirror glass? Fractured and fuzzy, faded and dusty...old photograph, curling and dying in centuries' old sunlight. Crackle, fizz. The picture is ruined! He cannot remember his father's place.

It's been replaced with his god's. His God.

He shakes his head, disperses the thought—the killer, a god?

Oh, but such a base term! Killer. Is that what he really is? Is that what his art has been dismissed as?

When he remembers Yamanaka's death, over and over he retches. Dry, heaving ones. Wet, sickly ones. Or does nothing come out at all? He doesn't want to remember, but he can't help in doing so. It is his last shred of reality in this godforsaken place—hospital? A ward? A barrier, a gate, a prison. It keeps the world away, just as he has proven to be unable to do so himself.

He cannot ward people away.

It's a tragedy. He craves interaction. He cannot do without socializing. He is desperate, _cravingly_ desperate, for love and affection. Not. Those things die with horrific deaths, but his future is not so cold and grim. Is it?

For now he waits. When the good doctors see that he is well, they will leave him be. They will release him. Such an institution can't handle his treatment. They don't know the cure. They wouldn't be able to handle the pressure. Something will leak and the media with latch onto the place like leeches, sucking and lapping and sucking away until _someone_ finally breaks and reveals. Like a well cracked coconut. He's a nut, ha ha. Not funny.

What is the best approach? his fevered mind thinks.

How shall he greet the world?

He will smile, he thinks. He will smile happily and the world will reel back in horror.

He looks down at the carefully predulled crayons in his hand and smiles. Oh, those silly, silly people. He wouldn't _stab_ a man with a toy!

It is the only entertainment he is allowed inside. They refuse to give him the pens and pencils he so needs. He vaguely remembers the frenetic artist's pace he once had with one particular pen...pencil? When? When has he last used those materials? It has felt so long since then. Only faintly twitching hands remember their touch, the heady grasp of clacking utensils truly worthy of the subject. Red, fire red. Never magenta.

He settles for these colorful crayons more befitting towards children. And he has never felt so demeaned, not even when they strap him to his bed as he screams and screams...

Is he a child? Do they think him incompetent or stupid? Brief thoughts of irritation that sweeps away as he looks up into the face of his Warden and smiles.

A skip, a beat, a pause. And then The Warden awkwardly smiles back, and then notices the wildly erratic picture. Sloppy and childish—but with an artist's touch. Always, always with an artist's touch. Yet there is a peculiar realism for blunt materials that can only produce crude child things. No one ever said crayons were adequate. What is the picture about? What has he drawn?

Leaning back, Deidara is satisfied.

The Warden is horrified. _As well he should be_—Deidara is tempted to giggle aloud.

_Although crude, the unmistakable figure of a man with fury twisting his face_...

Red.

Such, such glorious red. All over. Blood, hair...? Blood red hair?

_And although crude, the unmistakable figure of a man with fury twisting his face_...blood splatters across the page and a sexually maimed choir sings and crows his name.

But something is missing. To the boy's eyes, it is such an imperfect creation. It is intolerable.

And all too suddenly, he is irate, no longer proud.

Crayons, he dismisses after a thought. How stupid he was to think this childish medium would suffice.

Well, then. What shall he use next?

And the bright, wide eyed stare he fixes upon his Warden is both altogether hungry and inane.

Ah, he thinks. This is what it means to be feared.

--

Some time ago or some time later—in years? Months?—the darling man comes to him on his own, finally, without the pretense. Their first interrogation! Their first meeting! How exciting—it would be if it were truly their first meeting.

How many times have they met now? How many times has the thoughts of his mind been shifted through and wrenched away by the man?

Oh, the man is no warden. He does not care to keep him down, hold him by straps and meaty, roving hands. He is not such a man.

Instead, _instead_! An officer! Oh, the irony! The irony kills him, positively kills him.

And what's taken him so, so _long_? To come back? The room is dull! His guest livens it up. The _hunger_ in the man's eyes, blanketed by a severe disinterest, and yet a severe distaste? He wants to know, Deidara knows. The silly man wants to unwrap him, peel him around and around...get to the core of the fruit, the orange. The citrus. The lovely, lovely food.

_Unpeel him_.

"Deidara-kun," Shikaku says with a tired familiarity as he holds up a crudely drawn picture. He leans forward slightly. "Is this supposed to be your biological mother's death?"

One picture in a million, he feels—that is, unless he is given something _other than crayons!_

And when the boy in pallid clothes with a pallid face cocks his head, _he does so in such a childish way_. Single dull eye wide and unfocused, Deidara's lips are stretched wide in a smile. His lips are chapped, to the point of dry bleeding. "Of course," he says, so matter-of-factly that his interrogator sighs. "Mama always loves her Sunday's best, never mind that we are not Christian or Catholic or...or even religious! The blue sets off her body, doesn't it? I think she's pretty, but her yellow hair is ugly...maybe I drew it wrong? It's all wrong! _Goddamn_ _crayons_," he suddenly hisses out, breaking the abnormal spell of youth.

Shikaku does not bother to hide the brief closing of his eyes, the tiredness hidden inside. But his voice is steady, as always. "I am talking about the man in this picture. Who is he?"

"But Mama never, ever wears her Sunday's best when alone," Deidara continues, reverted to a child once more. "Who would she wear it for? Who shall she impress? Father is in his studio, the stranger in his rooms...and the little boy lost _away_ from there."

Shikaku stills. He does not ignore the seemingly pointless rambling, but stares intently into Deidara's eyes, watchful. Watching. Waiting.

Deidara does not seem to notice, but the glimpse in the corner of his eye is coy. "...that man, you see? He was there that day...I think. _Maybe_?" He drawls out the last word like an outstretched lover.

"When you drew me a picture of Sasori before," Shikaku says with a vague gesture of the hand, _but Deidara can see the interest in his eyes_, "his hair was red. Now, this man is covered in _red_...but not his hair. Care to explain?"

The boy tilts his head once more, giddy, giddy smile breaking out—that does not unnerve his guest! How disappointing. The smile tones down to match his all too whispered voice. "But aren't you more interested in Mama's pretty whites?"

It does not take even a glance to know that the mutilated woman on the page is not wearing any white. But Shikaku is patient and does not yield. He matches the boy's apparent smirk with his own. "No, I am interested. Very."

And the boy's eyes gleam in a way that is not quite right. But he doesn't say a word.

But the darling officer obliges him. Shikaku drawls aloud, "Don't tell me you want to stop our session already? Do you want to know you're _dreaming_ again?"

And then Deidara realizes he is not Quite Awake.

Blinking, smiling, he doesn't _quite_ understand. "But I like this."

"And you can talk," the man points out. "You haven't even met me yet."

"Untrue, untrue!" the boy sings. Single visible eye curved with his smile, it suddenly slams open as he lunges forward.

And when Deidara throws himself at his guest and wrangles the man's throat, _throttling the bastard_, he knows now how he shall handle their First Meeting.

"Wait for me," he hisses in the man's ear. "Wait for me...!"

But no matter how much he tightens and tightens and _tightens_ his hands, Shikaku only smirks faintly into his one feverish, glowing eye. _Mocking him._

Terrorizing him.

--

She raises a hand and rests it on his cheek. "Oh, Kabuto," she says. "Have you been well? You're so thin..."

He closes his eyes. "Whereas you glow. You're beautiful."

"Pregnancy," Yoshino says, amused, "brings out the glow in all women. A healthy flush of hormones, as it were."

"Yes."

She tugs his hand and brings it atop her swelling belly. Kabuto stiffens. "Feel him, Kabuto," she murmurs. "The child Shikaku and I've made."

"Nara-san..." Kabuto says, quiet.

"I want him home. I want him back." Her face softens. "How is he, Kabuto?"

Disheveled clothes, haggard appearance. A pack of cigarettes a day. Kabuto stills, the image fading away. "He is busy, but he's fine."

"Precious boy. Don't lie to me." She smiles, a sad upturn of the lips. "Of course he's bad off. I know this. I'm sorry to have asked this of you. It's not fair to you."

"Will you go?" He gently extracts his hand from her grasp.

She regards him with curious eyes. "Will you stop me? I will go with or without your help."

"Yes, I know. You have already sneaked in many times. It's dangerous and foolhardy."

"The only danger is if I trip and fall." Yoshino's voice cheerfully lilts. "Well...that and if I crash the car. But if I go with a policeman, security will be gentle with me, won't they? As if an expecting mother needs a reason to enter a hospital! You will come, won't you?"

Kabuto's mouth is at a displeased slant. "He'll not be pleased."

"My husband already knows what he can and can't do with me." She shrugs delicately. "He can bark all he wants, but I'm going to see Inoichi. No tenuous relationship between my husband and he is going to stop me from going."

Kabuto sighs. "Now I have to come with, don't I? To keep you from doing something foolish."

"Of course," Yoshino says, smiling.

--

"Inoichi?" she whispers. With a slight shrug, she seats herself beside him. She tugs at his inert arm. "Silly man. What were you thinking?"

"He can't answer you."

"Oh, shush, Kabuto. Can't you see I'm talking to Inoichi? Why don't you go outside?"

Kabuto holds up his hands as if he were exasperated, but he leaves. The door closes shut behind him, and the room becomes quiet with his fading footsteps.

Now alone, Yoshino's face falls. Her grip on the comatose man tightens. "Hey...you can hear me, can't you? You have to know how stupid you've both been. How stupid you both _are_. Honestly, do I have to be surrounded by stupid men my entire life? Don't argue with me. You know Shikaku's stubborn nature outweighs his genius."

Her eyes lower, and her voice falters. "I miss having my boys around. Stupid or not, I liked it. It was nice. Don't you think so, too?"

Tentative, she looks up. She brushes yellow hued hair from his face. "When Shikaku came home that night, he was frightening. I bet you didn't think that lazy man of mine could ever be scary, could you? But he was. And I'm not talking about last week when...when this happened. I'm talking about back then, years and years ago, when all of us were together still. You remember, don't you? It was the night my husband came home to me, a stranger. He was so angry..."

Drawing up a forceful breath, she stretches her lips into a pained smile. "You're an idiot, Inoichi. An utter fool. What kind of person does this to his friends? Didn't you say you were doing it for family? Didn't _you_ argue back at Shikaku, saying how you were going to adopt boy no matter what? Idiot Inoichi—a really big idiot!"

Yoshino clenches eyes shut. Tipping back her head, she mutters, "Che, now look. I'm going to cry. Stupid Inoichi. This isn't good for the baby either. Have to—have to get back control."

Standing shakily, she drags a chair next to the bed. She doesn't want to look at the prone man anymore, much less sit beside him. She is smiling, but it is tremulous and it hurts. Looking down at her hands, Yoshino sounds worn.

"I'm tired all the time," she says. "My back aches. Second trimester, and my dummy of a husband still doesn't know how to deal with me anymore. Says all my complaints are troublesome. Can you believe that, Inoichi? Why can't he be as well mannered as you?"

"But, you know," Yoshino continues, smile becoming less strained, "I'm happy. I'm...I'm really happy right now. Remember when Ino was just born? Remember how that felt? Remember your wife's smile?"

Flushed and hopeful, she clasps his hand and strokes it. Her eyes never leaves Inoichi's closed lids as she searches his face for something only she can see. Her smile has become genuine. "I can't wait for my boy to be born. You don't know how long I've waited for Shikamaru. Ever since—well...I was also hoping for her to see him, too. But she can't, can she? Because she's dead.

"Inoichi...Inoichi, if you don't wake up you're going to hurt a lot of people. You're going to leave behind your _child_. You're going to leave behind Ino. And yet, at the same time, I have a feeling you don't ever want to get up. You don't want to face what that monster has done to you, your family, to...to Chihiro."

Hands tightening into fists, Yoshino murmurs, "But I'm worried about Shikaku. If you don't wake up, what will happen to Shikaku? You don't understand. He's hurt. I don't know how much more he can take before he breaks."

She bows her head, feeling sick. "Ten years ago, he was going to quit the force. Did you know that? Work is always rough on him. He's not as detached and cool as he makes himself out to be. Everybody thinks he's this untouchable genius who can shrug off anything.

"But, you know, after I had that miscarriage Shikaku was really afraid. Remember? He was working on that murder case with the triple homicide, but the killer was never found. Three children were killed, and my husband couldn't figure out who had killed them. He was shaken. He had never failed a profiling before, much less a case. And then, you know what? The killer was found, but not by Shikaku. The guy went to court, got seventy-five years, but Shikaku never had the closure he wanted. He was also grieving for our lost child."

Yoshino's expression turns ironic as if she were enjoying a private joke. "I was angry, too, when you decided to adopt a boy like that. Think of all the grief it would put you through! Now, I don't care. But my husband is different. He can't forget the past. He broods too much, thinks too hard...don't you think it was stupid of you to have ignored his warnings? Taking in the victim of a Sasori case, not bothering to rebuild the trust you had with him—I think you were very foolish indeed.

"But I don't think that anymore. I understand now. Inoichi, you..." Yoshino shakes her head. "You were always too soft. Between Shikaku and Chouza, how did you become so thoughtful, so wonderful? Shikaku is not perfect. He is flawed. And Chouza is much more bitter, much more angry, than he lets on...

"But, Inoichi, you're different. You're unchanged. I wonder how you will react when this is all over. What kind of world do we live in? Things were so much simpler back then. I can see why Shikaku totes around that phrase, and I'm scared. Does it make any sense to say that while I feel deliriously happy at times, I'm also afraid? I...I don't know where you found that strength, what compelled you to take in a broken boy and raise a wonderful daughter. Weren't you afraid?"

She falls quiet. "I met a wonderful young man a few years ago. Shikaku's trained him to be a profiler. I guess you can call it irony that this young man is also connected to that monster Sasori. His manner is very polite and though he and my husband share a peculiar relationship, he very much respects Shikaku. But he is cold. He's been hurt, too. We all have. I wonder if I've done right by him, he's been so distant lately..." Eyes softening, a smile plays at her lips. "Honestly, he reminds me of Shikaku. Isn't that funny? Someday, I hope little Shikamaru won't take after those two. Dealing with one genius is enough, and Kabuto is frighteningly smart already. I am surrounded by interesting men." Glancing at the clock, she frowns.

"Inoichi," she says, standing. "I will be back again. I'll check on Ino for you, although she probably doesn't remember me, it's been so long. Kabuto must be impatient with me by now..."

After patting the prone man's hand, she carefully moves past the chair she'd pulled up. As she reaches the door, though, she slows to a pause.

"That's funny...the door's open."

Peering outside, she blinks, wondering why she feels suddenly uneasy. "Kabuto?" she calls, unsure.

But no one is there.

"Maybe he's not back yet?" she muses aloud. Turning to gently shut the door behind her, she jerks back when she finds a boy standing behind her.

Lank, frayed blond hair draping over slumped shoulders, bangs that cover one eye, revealing a world weary other...

And then the boy blinks, and he becomes a mask. No expression at all.

"Oh...hello." Yoshino's unease stirs, although she doesn't know why. "Are you a visitor, too?"

He begins to walk away.

Startled, she takes a step forth. "Ah—wait! Where are you...?"

But his gait doesn't pause at all. Glancing back at the room's door, Yoshino bites into her lower lip, nibbling, wondering what she should do.

Absently, she rests a hand on her swelling belly. That boy looks like Inoichi...

When she looks up, she finds he has stopped and is staring at her. But his expression is strange. Despite herself she blushes, realizing that he is staring at her _stomach_. He is doing so with such scrutiny, it is almost impolite.

But when he glances up and catches her eyes, she sees that there is nothing but childlike curiosity in his gaze. He is a _child_. She must have been imagining things when she thought he had a strange expression before. His face is so open, how could he be anything but a boy?

Immediately, she relaxes; honestly, what had she been tense for? Taking several steps forward, her smile is warm. "Hello," she says, surprised that he is taller than she. "I'll ask again, are you a visitor here? Are you a relative of Inoichi, perhaps?"

And then she sees why he seemed so small before. Even now, he is hunched over and his head is bowed—no, dropped. She cannot see his face properly because his hair is in her way, but his expression is lost. When she stops in front of him, he seems to shrink back. Concerned, she leans over, trying to meet his eyes.

"Boy?" Yoshino murmurs. "What is your name?"

But he shakes his head vigorously. She is taken aback when he clasps his throat and opens his mouth to soundless words. His single visible eye is open and wide, earnest.

She cannot read lips like her husband can. "I'm sorry," she says. "I can't understand you. What are you trying to tell me?"

And then she sees that he is clutching his throat.

"Boy, you...?"

--

And some time even later, Deidara slips past the guard of The Warden, pills dropping at his feet like a whimsical Hansel and Gretel recreation. He doesn't quite know if The Warden will be all right. He doesn't think any of his jailers will ever be all right.

He is careful to cling to the walls and the shadows, allowing them to part his way, leading him towards his goal. He is practically skipping, so giddy and full of glee is he.

And the grin on his face is no less insane.

But he jerks to a stop, slamming up against a wall. The hall is dimly lit and doesn't echo despite his presence. Peering, peering, he snatches a glimpse of a door—and is furious when he hears words. No one should be here!

And then the room falls silent, and Deidara is alarmed when he hears the door open. With a single minded focus, he slips into his hiding place and waits for the man to get through. Get out.

And he is vaguely familiar. Light hair, bespectacled eyes. And the vaguely dangerous gait of a predator.

A name lifts its head, but Deidara banishes it without a thought. He doesn't _care_. He only wants to get in _there_.

It is the longest minute of his life that he doesn't suck in a breath. And the fiercely stalking man, fiercely stalking away, does not ever notice him. Deidara grins and sticks a tongue out. He has run out of pills.

He has checked. There are none in his pockets.

A shame, too, he thinks. A pretty woman is coming out.

And he knows who is inside. He just _knows_. He can feel it. He's sensed her before.

Or maybe it's because he has heard her name spoken indoors.

_Yoshino_, he tries out, lips curving, single eye smiling.

Delighted, he dances forward with a soundless giggle and waits not too far from the door. Impatient, he pushes lank bangs away, hands twitching at the opportunity ahead.

He knows the should-be-dead Yamanaka is inside. His shoulders droops at the reminder, at the placard nailed to the wall.

But then he perks up. If the man isn't dead now that means he's been deigned to live. _Comatose!_ the gossip mill has hissed in his ear, snatches of conversation from complacent nurses. _Comatose_!

And inside...inside is the dead man's most frequent visitor. The wife of his to-be-interrogator, _the interrogator who must be killed_. Killed. Killed? Stopped. Deidara can barely hold himself back, not when the door finally opens from the inside.

Her surprise is so pronounced she nearly jumps, gasping. And Deidara decides he likes such an expression. He wants to see more.

And then he sees her swelling stomach.

He has not known. He freezes, petrified yet enthralled by the sight. Tension thrums in his veins. He wants to get away.

Startled, she is startled. He is walking away? "Ah—wait! Where are you...?"

And he stops. He stops because he _can't_ bring himself away, don't you see? He can't get away. He trembles as he turns, but he forces his body to still. Didn't he say he wanted more? What changed, what changed? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. _He will stay_.

"Hello," the pretty woman says carefully, taking several steps forward. "I'll ask again, are you a visitor here? Are you a relative of Inoichi, perhaps?"

His head is ducked, his eye stretched so wide in his excitement. He doesn't know whether to smile, laugh, or cry.

"Boy?" Yoshino murmurs. "What is your name?"

_Here she is_! a horrid voice snakes inside of him.

His dull, empty eye is hidden away under a frenetic fall of hair. The other wells up, pleading for the woman to come for him, to _understand_ him. He doesn't know what's real and what's not anymore. How has he escaped from his cell? He does not know, does not remember. What has he come here for? To throttle the dry husk his adoptive father makes. But even then he has swapped his motives. He'll not kill anyone here. The man is clearly meant to be alive—why else has he not been killed already?

Not even The Warden. Not even this pretty, pretty woman.

_Not the babe—_!

He's scared. So scared.

And when he looks up, the pained quality of his eye is not faked. The plaintive whine he wants to emit, the soft expression he clasps onto his face for mounting pity. A sight any heart would tug at!

He lightly grasps his throat, and at her horror he knows he knows he has her enthralled.

Ah, he thinks. This is what it means to survive.

* * *

My god, I'm finally done. The transitions between POVs are messy, and I don't care. Too long have I agonized over Deidara's mindset, and he is finally back! Yoshino's part of the Nara pair, so she's here to stay. I doubt anybody else will be introduced. All the players should be here on stage.

Because Deidara's clearly more than crazy, don't take his word for word. His POV shouldn't ever be completely trusted.

But damn does it feel good to write Deidara again. However, this chapter's spotlight is on Yoshino...I really, really love her strength of character and Kabuto's reaction towards her. And little Shikamaru is alive! :3

But you know that bad things will come, don't you?


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